I Look in the Mirror and I See Scars

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A Starsky & Hutch Fusion Slash Novel Featuring Elements from STAR TREK’s Mirror, Mirror Universes

 

 

 

by Kath Moonshine

 

 

This novel contains fictional graphic lovemaking between fictional adult men who enjoy that sort of activity. If this is not your cup of tea, please stop reading now.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you, dear reader, so very much, for initially supporting the original zine and zine culture overall, and now by reading the online archive version of my story.

I could not have completed this project without the help and contributions of many others:

My spouse, Glow, who became a “fandom widow” for many hours over the course of two years—thank you for your patience, honey.

Lorraine B., my cover artist and best friend forever (BFF)—she honored me not only with her incredible artistic talents but even allowed me to have input on elements of the cover. Thank you, my friend, for creating an artwork that emotionally illustrates the themes of the novel. Your fierce Starsky and sweet Hutch are all that I could have desired.

Lorraine G., who cheered me though my “I’m an adult-onset prodigy” moments and comforted me through my much more frequent moments of, “I’m an intellectual fraud! What made me think I could write this novel?” [1] She contributed mightily with suggestions and encouragement throughout the two-year process.

Nicol Tyler, who listened to me and was able to give me what I needed for the novel in just the way I needed it. What a generous illustrator and artist!

Lastly, but most importantly, I must thank my editor, M. Butterfly, without whom this story would not be in your hands. I do not produce without an editor—that is a firm and fast rule for me. I respect others who have this ability, but it is not woven into my soul. I must have an editor who will call me on my bullshit and provide me with concrete and detailed feedback on ways to make a line, a paragraph, a scene, and a chapter better. M. Butterfly does that and more. We’ve both experienced sickness at differing times that cut into our editing schedule. We literally took this project down to the wire. It only went to the printer the day before ShareCon 2025.

Would the novel have been better for an additional proofread (at that time)? Of course! But writers can iterate unto the grave, and like many writers, I cannot complete a project without a deadline. Additionally, many fans that would be happy to support a fanzine, as long as they didn’t have to pay postage, would have passed on the zine, if it were not done in time. Were there typos? Yes. Did I create the occasional accidental skip between paragraphs? Yes. I’ve since done my best to eradicate these small errors. Do the small errors that remain in anyway obscure the greater meaning of the story—absolutely not!

Just know that M. Butterfly worked with a dramatically dyslexic author who sight-spells over 45,000 words (most taught to me by my grandmother, who had a fourth-grade education, on homemade flash cards made of old brown paper grocery sacks). M. Butterfly had a mighty task that she undertook with courage and kindness. Additionally, two characters always presented in first-person present tense; two characters were always third-person past tense. Considering that some parts of the novel were not written chronologically, I sometimes changed points-of-view and forgot to change the tense. M. Butterfly saved me from myself, again, and again, and again. Thank you, my darling friend. I am forever in your debt. And remember, dear reader, all errors are my own.

Go! Enjoy the story and my interpretation of exactly why the last season was so different from the first three. I would love to hear from you. Here’s my address: KathorPhlint@gmail.com

Starsky and Hutch Forever!

~Kath Moonshine, 17 September 2025

[1] With a tip o’ the nib to Alison Bechdel for this wonderful phrase that I latched onto as my own.

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Prelude: Waiting

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Monday, October 31, 1977, A.D. (Anno Domini)

For two weeks I’d been expecting it. I’m surprised it took so long. It starts as a sniffle. Starsky takes a sharp right and fishtails into a closed self-serve carwash, pulling into the dark bay so that no one but me can see him lose his shit over a man he loved like a father. A gay man so deep in the closet that Starsky never knew until it was too late to ask questions. To understand.

The storm hits. Starsky clutches me tight. Tears soak my collar as he gasps John Blaine’s name. After what feels like forever, a hiccup signals the end is near, and I shift enough to snag a stack of napkins from the glove box, leftover from our lunch at Red’s Hot Dogs. He dries his face, blows his nose, wads up the napkins, and throws them out the window.

“You ever been with a man, Hutch?” Starsky asks, his voice husky with tears.

It doesn’t even occur to me to lie.

“Yeah.”

After a minute, he asks, “Was it Jack Mitchell?”

“Yes,” I answer. “Neither of us wanted to ‘intern’ for our fathers before we headed off to college. We – we got hired as lifeguards at a fancy resort the summer after we graduated from high school. We shared a cabin. Things just seemed . . . to happen.”

He nods, but I can see Starsky go away inside himself, even as he puts the Torino in reverse and backs out of the carwash.

For a moment, I’m afraid I’ve repulsed him with my confession. But then his hand comes to rest on my thigh and drifts up to my fly, his fingertips tracing the zipper.

I don’t know why we go to my place. Unspoken, we just do. It’s late when Starsky pulls up to the curb, long past the time for trick-or-treaters. Without a word, we get out and climb the stairs to my door. Starsky fishes the key off the lintel, and lets us both in.

The door is barely shut before he starts to undress. I watch as he toes off his shoes, shrugs out of his leather jacket, sheds his shoulder rig, pulls his t-shirt over his head, and pushes down his jeans and socks in one smooth move. He leaves on his bikini briefs. That right there tells me Starsky isn’t nearly as ready to get it on as he might think.

Okay, I consider. I’ve always told myself that if Starsky ever gave me an opening, I’d take it slow.

I gesture to the bedroom, indicating by signs alone that he should get comfortable. He nods and climbs into my bed carefully, as if he’s afraid to disturb the covers. He lays back on the pillows. His right-hand sinks into his curls, his left rests on his chest. Like he’s been running sprints, his breathing is fast and light.

Cautiously, I circle to the foot of the bed, still wearing my baseball jacket and gun. Unbutton my shirt but leave it open. Unbutton my jeans and lower the zipper, not quite one tooth at a time, but almost. All the while, my partner watches me intently, as though I were performing a magic trick with something prized that he’s sure I’ll spirit away. I push down my jeans and my boxers, just enough to free my cock. At first, it lies curled quietly, but I can feel Starsky’s eyes on me. I look up and catch his gaze, and I’m scorched. I feel a fiery flush spread from my cheeks, down to my neck, then to my torso. My heartbeat is so loud, I’m surprised the neighbors can’t hear it, like some Edgar Allen Poe tale come to life.

With my right hand, I cup my quiescent cock, and with my left I push open my shirt and jacket, begin to pinch and roll my nipples. Starsky drops his eyes too quickly for me to see the emotion there. Fear? Disgust? Even laughter at the crimson stain covering half my body? But a closer look shows he’s staring at me, at my dick, through the curtain of his dense lashes.

By now I’m stiffening up nicely, enjoying the weight of Starsky’s scrutiny. It’s like those jeweled eyes are caressing me, even though it’s just my own hand, the pull and drag of my thumb and fingers nothing I haven’t felt a thousand times before. How often, when I’ve jerked off, have my actions been accompanied by thoughts of my partner?

Watching me.

Touching me.

Kissing me.

At the thought of kissing Starsky back, I close my eyes. A small moan escapes my lips; I suck in the bottom one and bite down, just hard enough, just painful enough, to remind me to keep quiet. Starsky’s the most talkative man I’ve ever known, and I don’t want to break the spell his silence has cast on this moment.

I continue to work my nipples, imagining it’s Starsky’s lips and teeth tugging and twisting them. My lower hand is stroking steadily, stretching the moment out, passing from root to head, then giving the little twist at the end that always turns me on.

It’s my turn to peek through my lashes, to find out what my partner’s doing. Right away I see that he’s hard, his underwear barely containing his erection. The tip of his cock is leaking, staining his blue briefs. I want so much – I want him so much – but must be content with this silent, shared voyeurism that feels more intimate than any sex act I’ve ever experienced. Why? Because it’s Starsky. So close. So unattainable. Until tonight, when he’d finally broken down and bawled about John Blaine.

I tighten my grip, tug with harsh strength on my cock, banishing everything except those eyes watching me stroke myself. I’m close, but I want to make sure Starsky’s getting what he needs. And it appears I have nothing to worry about. He’s kneading himself though the fabric of his briefs. The wet spot has spread, his face is tight, and I can see he’s as close to coming as I am. I give a final hard tug, and jizz is splattering onto my navel, spilling hot over my hand. I lean forward, wishing I had a footboard at the end of the bed to hang on to, but having to settle for the mattress to steady me. It’s that or fall.

Mustering some strength, I look up just in time to see Starsky come. The expression that contorts his features is equal parts pain and joy.

After a while, after we both can breathe again, after I tuck my dick away, I head to the bathroom for some clean washcloths. I hand one to Starsky and use one on myself. Next, I root around in my gym-clothes drawer and pull out a pair of sweatpants for Starsky and a pair of shorts for me. I take off my jacket, gun, and clothes as Starsky wriggles out of his underwear and into the sweats. I dress myself, then try to pull the covers down, but it’s awkward when there’s someone on them. Eventually, Starsky scoots up to the headboard, and, at last, I can yank the bedspread out from under him.

I climb into bed, cover us both, lay on my side with my back to Starsky, and turn out the light.

It’s a few minutes later that a tentative hand creeps around my waist, gently urging me to roll over, which I do. I’ve never been more thankful for darkness than I am in this moment. I don’t think I could handle Starsky looking at me with regret on his face. Instead, I feel lips tentatively touch my own. I return the fragile kiss with equal gentleness. Fingers card through my hair, and – for just a moment – the kiss deepens, enough for me to taste the mustard and onions from his hotdogs hours ago. And it’s perfect. Just perfect. This is my partner, and I love him. And everything’s going to be all right. It’s just going to take time. Time for this fragile new thing between us to take root and grow.

As if he’s read my mind, Starsky breaks the kiss and whispers, “I need time, Hutch. We gotta take this easy, okay? I really dig you, but I’m not ready for anything too heavy. Not yet. You get me?”

His hand is still in my hair. I nod. Now I’m the silent one.

After a while, I roll over onto my side again, my back to Starsky. He moves close behind me, the big spoon to my little. Starsky’s breathing evens, and I can feel the moment of utter relaxation that signals sleep.

I listen as a big storm moves in, a real boomer that sets my skylights afire with chain lightning, followed by heavy rain. I can’t help but think the Renaissance writers got it all wrong; water from Heaven doesn’t wash away sins or sadness. Nature’s baptism doesn’t foretell a happy ending for the hero. It’s just rain. Gushing over a grimy city, pushing trash and other detritus towards storm drains, little boats for the sewers rats to ride before the whole filthy mess is vomited by Volkswagen-sized pipes into the sea.

Serenaded by ferocious thunder and Starsky’s gentle snoring, I lie there in the dark – wishing he hadn’t broken the silence, wishing I could’ve kept my fantasy that everything’s going to be fine – for just a little longer. I spend what seems like hours counting his breaths, counting the lightning flashes, beginning the countdown to the end.

Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator
A Few Hours Later

Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator had spent his entire life willingly serving the Empire. He’d been recruited straight from the collegium. A bright young man, with a double major in chemical and electrical engineering. Top grades. As a bonus, he had no family living and, fortunately, there were few friends to miss him when he disappeared and became an industrial spy for the Science and Technology Directorate.

The years piled up, as did Mariscalus’ successes. Who needed a key to the patent house door when your inside man could steal the newest technology and give it to the emperor’s servants free of charge? The Research and Development Department over at Sci-and-Die – as the slaves who worked there termed it – was substantial, robust, and completely self-funded, given the multiplicity and marketability of that which their most successful operative stole.

Mariscalus always returned with his shield, never on it; not a single failure in forty years of service.

That was why a terrible rage possessed him now. His final assignment – his masterpiece – ruined! He’d spent the last fifteen years working his way up the corporate ladder at a particularly odious company until his hoary hands held the reins of a dozen west-coast conglomerates. Finally, he’d accumulated enough power to strike – to strip the worst industrialists, men protected by generational wealth and graft – and claim their domains as his own. Ah, yes, his own and the Directorate’s, of course. But who cared? It would be his name on the door. He would die a wealthy man, and no one the wiser that it was at the behest of the emperor. In a blink, his sacrifice was dismissed. And for what? A deathtrap assignment.

It was then that Mariscalus determined he would escape.

Strangely enough, it was his superiors who made escape from the Empire possible. A miracle, if you will. Publicly, he had spent his life professing the Gods; it made for a good cover story, to be perceived as a pious idiot. Privately, he doubted their existence. Tonight, though, had given him more than a moment’s pause. Why? Because he had ridden the lightning as though he were Jupiter Thunderer Himself.

When he awoke, Mariscalus found himself deposited, not on Mount Olympus, but in a strange new world, so like his own, yet foreign, and now his permanent domain. A thrill fired his blood. There was no power that could recall him. He was a free agent in a place that would pale at his ferocity, if it but knew of his existence.

He rose unsteadily from the gently rocking planking, rubbing his aching shoulder to ease the pain of his landing. Head aching terribly, he staggered to the calendar on the burled-walnut wall, which informed him it was the first day of November, Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-seven, as numbered in this alien land. On the desk was a diary. Deeply tooled into the heavy leather was a name. His trembling fingers traced the letters.

“Soon,” Mariscalus thought brightly, despite his aches and pains. “Soon this entire world will know my new name.”

The Secret Diary of Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator

THE SLAVES ON MY YACHT ARE NOT SLAVES BUT, RATHER, SERVANTS. ONE HAD THE TEMERITY TO CORRECT ME, BUT I DID NOT CHASTISE THE BRAVE FOOL. I NEED INFORMATION TO FUNCTION IN THIS STRANGE NEW WORLD.

I ORDERED US TO PORT AT ONCE. TOOK POSSESSION OF MY BAHAMIAN ESTATE AND LOCKED MYSELF IN MY OFFICE. TAKING MEALS THERE AND SLEEPING ON THE DIVAN, I SPENT A WEEK POURING OVER RECORDS, MAKING MULTIPLE CALLS TO MY ATTORNEY AND ACCOUNTANT FOR CURRENT FILES, TAX RETURNS, AN INVENTORY OF THE BUSINESSES MY “TWIN” FROM THIS WORLD OWNED.

A TIDY SUM, IT TURNS OUT. “I” AM A VERY WEALTHY MAN. MY DOUBLE HAD A LARGE STRING OF BUSINESSES AND SIGNIFICANT INVESTIMENTS. SIGINIFICANT. I COULD RETIRE ON THIS VERY BEACH AND HAVE NARY A CARE IN THE WORLD. BUT MY LAST ASSIGNMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE ON A MASSIVE SCALE HAS TAUGHT ME THAT LEGITIMATE BUSINESS IS NOT SUFFCIENT TO PROTECT ONE FROM THE POWERS THAT BE. SHADOW COMPANIES. SHELL CORPORATIONS. MONEY LAUNDERING. DRUGS. THESE ARE THE NEW ENTERPRISES. RISK. YES, RISK. BUT THE PAYOUT IS WEALTH THAT MAKES ONE UNTOUCHABLE.

I WILL NEED A NEW LAWYER, OF COURSE. SMART. DEVIOUS. BUT WEAK, EASY TO SUBORN. THE FIRM IN PLACE NOW IS TOO CONSERVATIVE FOR WHAT I HAVE IN MIND. I WILL ALSO NEED A SECOND ACCOUNTANT, ONE FOR MY SHADOW EMPIRE. ALL IN GOOD TIME. IF I SELECT MY NEW ATTORNEY WELL, HE WILL HAVE ALL THE CONTACTS I REQUIRE.

THINK OF IT! A CHANCE TO START OVER. FREE OF HANDLERS, MISSION SPECS, A MILITARY COMMAND MIRED IN A REPUBLIC THAT DIED TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO. EVERYONE UNDER THE EMPIRE IS A SLAVE, EVEN IF THEY DO NOT HAVE THE SENSE TO KNOW IT.

I AM NO LONGER A SLAVE. I AM NOW THE MASTER, AND I WILL WORK MY WILL WITH IMPUNITY. ONLY THIS WORLD DOES NOT USE THE WORD MASTER; THE TITLE IS MAGNATE. ON MY WORLD, THIS TRANSLATES AS GREAT. I WILL BE THE GREATEST FINANCIAL POWER THE WESTERN PROVINCES – KNOWN AS THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA HERE – HAS EVER KNOWN.

AND I WILL NOT HESITATE TO KILL ANYONE WHO GETS IN MY WAY.

WRITTEN BY MY OWN HAND, THIS NINTH DAY OF NOVEMBER, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN, AS NUMBERED ON THIS BARBAROUS WORLD, LYFORD CAY, THE BAHAMAS.

 

Chapter I: Veni Vidi Perdidi

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Monday, 28 August 1978, J.C. (Julian-Adjusted Calendar)

“Get in here, Hutchinson!”

Dobey didn’t sound pissed. A good imitation of pissed, but Hutch wasn’t fooled. Dobey sounded scared. Hutch pretended to contemplate the black pipe clenched between the snarling teeth and bloody tusks of the wild boar “piggy” bank on the desk he shared with his partner, even as his nutsack tightened, tucking closer to his body. Something that could scare Dobey . . . ? Hutch’s heart quickened. Clawed into his throat. Clung there bitterly. Starsky was out of town. What if . . . ?

Steeling himself, Hutch sauntered into Dobey’s office to face the inevitable, aware of the glittering eyes that watched him: Other detectives – the jealous ones that hated him and Starsky; the steno-pool slaves; the meter maids, male and female, looking for a break that could elevate them to a coveted beat-cop position; and the beat cops in their stiff black United Provinces Police Force (or UPPF, for short) jumpsuits, willing to fight or fuck or kill their way into what they imagined was the cushy Detective Division. All looked to see if the high and mighty Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson showed any sign of weakness as he was called to the “principal’s” office to get his ass chewed.

“Fuck ’em,” he thought, closing Dobey’s door, but leaving the squad room with a parting grin, demonstrating he wasn’t afraid of anything Dobey could throw at him. It was a lie, of course. Everyone lived in fear of those above them. That’s simply how the world worked. You just didn’t show it. That was also how the world worked.

“You’re a thousand miles away, Hutch.” Sweet Alice’s naked, shop-worn beauty pressed against his fully-clothed body. Her thin fingers, the nails scrupulously clean, gently traced the knotted crevice between his brows, as if her touch could dispel his cares.

“It’s my cock that’s a thousand miles away,” Hutch thought, absently stroking Alice’s hair, with no more passion than if she were a dog. Maybe less. Dogs don’t talk.

He looked down at her head on his chest, the part of her hair in high focus, proof she was a natural blonde. That’s what he liked about Sweet Alice: she was genuine in a city of cheap wigs, junk jewelry, sleazy clothes, brassy makeup, and affected voices. “Step right up! We’ve got a whore who can pretend to be a twelve-year-old, an empress, or a sweet thang! Pays yer money and makes yer pick!”

Alice always spoke softly and always told Hutch what he needed to know, not what she thought he wanted to hear. He was tired of pimps and thieves and junkies lying to him, guessing what to say to get off with just a light beating or a small shakedown when the simple truth the first time would save his knuckles and their faces a lot of wear and tear. But truth, he knew, was the shortest commodity on Earth.

Hutch didn’t tolerate familiarities from inferior beings, but Sweet Alice was one of the privileged few – including his partner, of course – he allowed to refer to him as “Hutch.”

“Is it something to do with Starsky?” Her southern-provinces drawl made it sound like “Stahs-kay.”

“No.”

“Then it must be something to do with you,” Alice said thoughtfully. “They tryin’ again to make you sit for the lieutenant’s exam?”

“Not this time.”

Alice, perhaps having reached the end of her assumptions or finally picking up that all Hutch needed tonight was silence, tightened her grip.

After a while, seeing that he didn’t want her body, Alice fell asleep, her soft arms slack around Hutch, who wished they were Starsky’s hard, sinewy hands, scarred from too many back-alley brawls, the thumb calloused from releasing the beside-the-bolt safety so often on his wet-work rifle.

“Get your affairs in order,” Dobey had ordered earlier that day. “You meet with Internal Affairs at 0800. You’ll be taking a little trip. Don’t bother to pack.”

Affairs. What affairs? Fifteen plants and a battered Ford Galaxy 500 with nearly a hundred thousand miles on the odometer. The only affair that mattered was the one with Starsky – dangerous, dysfunctional, and apt to leave one or both of them dead.

Alice stirred, as if she could hear his thoughts, and they haunted her. Her right arm shifted. Came to rest across his throat. At last, Hutch was hard, imagining it was Starsky’s sharp forearm choking him, his lean strength straddling Hutch’s thighs, pinning him. His partner’s other hand brutally jerking him off.

Felt like forever to lose his hard-on. Felt like only minutes before dawn shafted through the crack in the shabby shade.

It was time to go.

Alice woke, looking even more worn in daylight, but somehow prettier for it. “I hate to charge you, Hutch, but you know how Huggy is. ‘Not my fault you’re stuck in traffic. The meter don’t stop runnin’ on this cab,’” she quoted, shrugging one thin shoulder. “If it was up to me—”

Hutch fished out his wallet. Left a twenty on the nightstand and handed Alice the rest of his cash. Sixty denarius. Her fingers clutched the crisp bills to her chest, bisecting her small breasts. She looked up at Hutch with something like gratitude, something like fear. Then he pulled out his badge and wallet and put them in the nightstand drawer. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.

“Take the money. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

“You ain’t coming back.” It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t know.”

“What’ll I tell Starsky, when he comes ’round? ’Cause you know he will. And he don’t accept ‘I don’t know’ for an answer.” She shivered.

“Tell him this.” Hutch bent, grabbed her by the hair, crushed her close, and kissed her with all his strength, teeth clashing, biting. Sucked her tongue into his mouth. Tasted the familiar salt tang of blood.

“Tell him that.”

Hutch retrieved his piece and his leather jacket from the chair. Shrugged into both. Then he was down the stairs that led to the alley behind The Pits and the battered mass that was his ride.

It was 6:30 a.m. – plenty of time for a last meal before taking the “little trip” IA had planned for him – a trip he wasn’t optimistic about coming back from.

Breakfast was cold soup straight from the can, followed by an equally cold washup at the kitchen sink. He wanted nothing comforting – nothing that weakened him – before his meeting with Internal Affairs. Dobey had told him, “Room XIII. 0800. Don’t be late or I’ll break your trigger finger myself.” Anyone who’d ever doubted Dobey had always ended up with that broken finger. Hutch was smart enough, even as a green detective, to believe that his superior officer was as good as his word, so he’d never needed the object lesson. He wasn’t about to embrace stupid now, after seven years on the captain’s squad.

This wasn’t his first dust-up with IA. But it would be his first (A) without his partner, (B) with no clue what the IA ghouls wanted, and (C) not even a guess where they were taking him.

Or why.

Hutch wasn’t on the take, so that couldn’t be the reason. His folks were wealthy and he was on good terms with his people, so there was no need for him to accept payoffs. His father might be the top dog of the Duluth Prefecture in the great province of Minnesota, but his own rise in the UPPF was nothing to sneeze at. Dobey and the department had long marked him for promotion, and Hutch’s mother kept asking when he’d make commissioner, which he found baffling. Did she really not know that being the police commissioner of the vast province of California, which was six times the size of his father’s tract, was more than a couple of rungs up the ladder from a mere prefect? He felt he could do the job, and probably do it well. But detective sergeant was a long way from commissioner. Besides, how could he tell his times-may-change-but-standards-must-remain mother that he just didn’t have the juice to kill and lie and bribe his way to the top?

But Starsky did.

And that was the crux of Hutch’s problem.

Starsky was perfect at his job. At the height of his powers. Intuition. Deduction. Tenacity. And he was tough. Strong in body. Strong in mind. Clever. Cunning. Words Hutch would never use to describe himself. Furthermore, Starsky was ruthless when the occasion called for it. Like that time he offed those kinky kidnappers just because he’d believed they’d shot Hutch dead. Bent on revenge, Starsky took aim and hit the gas tank of the abductors’ vehicle with no more effort than most men take to swat a fly. But then, most cops didn’t have a highly skilled marksman as a partner – one often loaned out to the various imperial agencies when someone needed to die discreetly. Beautiful. Graceful. A panther to Hutch’s lion. That was what Huggy called them: “Hey, cats. What’s happenin’?” A lot of people were aware of that nickname. One fresh fuck straight out of the Academy had got the word Starsky and Hutch were “close – you know what I mean? Theban.” The rookie had made the mistake of making a kissy sound as they’d passed by, covered in blood and grime from a bad case, even by Bay City standards, barely closed and not yet in their review mirrors.

In less time than it took to describe later to Dobey, Starsky had clamped his hands to the sides of the probie’s head and slammed his forehead into the shocked, young face with all the speed he was famous for. Flattened his nose. Just a wet piñata. Kissed him, “like a man.” Left a bite mark that would forever scar, from nose to chin, because UPPF medical didn’t cover preventable injuries. And antagonizing a superior officer, one as overtly dangerous as David Michahēl Starsky, was the definition of a preventable injury. Dobey had made the rookie write up the report himself, then forced him to apologize to Sergeant Starsky, his wounds still seeping.

“What was his name?” Hutch thought now. By year two as a detective, he’d stopped memorizing rookies’ names until they’d survived their probation periods. If they were still alive, sane, unmaimed, then it was worth your while to get to know them.

Hutch knew all this old history shit was just distraction. Room XIII scared him. Just like the Coliseum, it had two doors: one you entered alive, the other purportedly went straight to the morgue. Rumor had it that surveillance gear didn’t work in Room XIII. Hutch doubted that, especially given it was in the heart of UPPF District HQ. But if a room existed that lacked surveillance, it would be Interrogation Room XIII. Oh – it was soundproof, too.

He was afraid. Maybe not as scared as the civil servant slaves or the cons bound for life in the mines, but still afraid. He wished Starsky was at his side but caught back the evil thought. Better off wherever he was, offing people who deserved to be offed.

Hutch stopped in front of the battered steel-bound door with a simple XIII stenciled at eye level. He put his hand on the knob. His jacket’s sleeve rose up enough to reveal his watch – just a Dimex, nothing like the fancy-schmancy chronometer Starsky wore.

Fifteen seconds.

He pulled his magnum from its holster. Seated the weapon in the small of his back, tucked just inside the band of his corduroys. If someone tried to cuff him, they’d get a big-damned surprise.

Hutch opened the door to Room XIII with two seconds to spare.

The door was surprisingly light, or just well-oiled and balanced. It shut with only a slight snick behind him.

The room was dim. He’d expected that – or the complete opposite. Dark or light. Life or death.

He’d also expected chipped paint. Dried blood on the floor. Feces smeared on the walls. What Hutch got instead was an eyeful of burled walnut paneling. A banker’s desk complete with a green glass lamp, the only source of light in what was obviously a working office. Red phone. Black phone. Fax machine. File cabinets. A blank murder board. And something he’d read about in Omnius Magazine: a Kenback-1 computer. The only reason he remembered the article was that he shared a name with the device, and the fact his father had asked him last month if he wanted one for Saturnalia. Only the rich and well-connected had computers that were smaller than warehouses.

A camel-backed chair in red velvet faced the desk, conveniently centered between the door Hutch had entered and the door on the opposite wall. Like a shotgun shack. Open the doors and you could let fly with both barrels without so much as singeing the furniture.

Sit or stand?

If Simonetti and Dryden came through the door, Hutch wanted to be seated, appear relaxed. Those pieces of shit didn’t deserve anything remotely close to standing to attention. But if someone other than Simonetti and/or his stooge appeared, would it be worth antagonizing a potential superior officer just to look cool? On the other hand, he and Starsky had been opining lately that Simonetti just might have them on his hit list. Which was stupid. Maybe he and his partner weren’t as clean as a priestess’ sheets, but they sure weren’t dirty.

Hutch rested his hand on the back of the chair, determined to take a seat, when the back door – morgue door? – opened. Silently.

The figure was backlit. Not tall, not short. Definitely not his favorite Internal Affairs assholes. An unknown quantity. Hutch kept his breathing steady. It took effort.

“Don’t stand on my account, Detective Hutchinson.” The voice was surprisingly, well, normal.

“What did you expect: Bela Lugosi?” The memory of Starsky’s voice was so clear in Hutch’s mind, it was as if his partner were in the room with him.

“Please be seated,” said the mystery man.

Huh. It actually sounded like an invitation, not an order.

Hutch sat.

The hair on the back of his neck rose when the man walked behind him, despite Hutch’s relative certainty that the height of the chairback would protect his throat from the cold, hard kiss of a garrote.

The man passed on Hutch’s right, moved to the desk, took his seat, but not before checking the fax machine.

Now that he was seated, Hutch could see his adversary in the pool of mossy light. Anglo. Medium build. Late middle age. Bald, but it looked like he shaved it, as Hutch could just barely see the shadow of regrowth. Mustache nearly identical to his own. Wrap-around medical lab coat, the kind you tied, not buttoned. It was Dr. Cohen, the new forensic pathologist on loan from the Army to gather tissue specimens for a research project. Everybody in the detective division, even the slaves, had donated a vial of blood and had a tissue sample, about the size of a brass obol, taken from their inner forearm about a week ago. Hutch still had the scab.

But he still had no idea what was going to happen to him now.

Cohen tapped on the keyboard inset in a gray surround that held a small television; the entire setup rested on a blue box rife with wires. “I have your dossier, detective,” he said after a moment, his face made stranger by the addition of the screen’s white uplighting.

“A double major from the Collegium of Minnesota – Bachelor of Science in Psychology and in Criminal Enforcement, immediately followed by a Master of Science in Criminal Psychology. Post-graduate certificate in Advanced Interrogation Methods. All that got you a military service deferment.” He looked up from his screen. “Why did you sign your life away to the United Provinces Police Force? A shame, really. You would have been most welcome in Military Intelligence. That is my division, of course. Military Intelligence, Asset Acquisition.”

“Not interested,” Hutch answered as the doctor paused to take a breath. “Dobey doesn’t like anyone messing with his people. He only lends Starsky to the Army because he’s a veteran – and he likes the work.”

“Your captain has no say in this matter.”

Good detectives have great bullshit-o-meters. Hutch’s instrument was finely tuned. This man was telling the truth.

Hutch’s thoughts flashed to his bank account, his Trust Fund, and his hideout stash. He lived as simply as a monk for a reason. Did some quick math. “Would you accept a substantial gift to subtract me from your scheme?”

“How substantial?”

“A talent of gold.”

The man chuckled. A genuine laugh. Hutch couldn’t detect a hint of derision. Not what he had expected.

“I have won a wager. My commander said you would not extend ‘a gratuity’ until after you had heard my offer. I told him you were a logical man and would realize the more you knew, the less likely you and Sergeant Starsky would escape my retiarius’ net.”

“What do you know about Starsky?” Hutch said darkly. He moved forward, poised menacingly on the edge of the chair.

“Much more than his dossier states. I have been his handler these last five years. Eleven assignments. Perfect record. You are a large part of his success.”

“How so?” Hutch tried not to bristle at Starsky’s name on another man’s tongue.

“Your Theban Band vow is neither one of convenience, nor merely weak sentiment. Forgive me for being blunt, but time is short. We share a similar educational background, Detective Hutchinson. Long observations have shown me that you are the stabilizing agent in Sergeant Starsky’s life. You bring a tremendous amount of order to what could be considerable chaos for our fierce young stallion. You are the wheel horse in this most successful chariot team. Strong. Determined. Knowing your job is to stick tight to the turns of the track. Staying the course without distractions. Together, you make a most winning team. At times I wish you really were horses, racing for the greens, but that is nonsense. I tell you all this because you are an intelligent man, one who can discern the deeper meaning of my metaphor.”

Hutch’s thoughts raced. Then settled. “This is your subtle way of telling me you’ll kill Starsky if I don’t do what you want, because his utility to you will be reduced.”

“It is for personal protection, as well. He is a solid detective. He will find out my role in your . . . adventure. I would not give a brass obol for my chances of eluding his revenge. So, of course, I would have to remove him from my equation.”

“Why am I here?”

“Does it matter?”

“You’re going to kill my partner if I don’t do something and do it well. So, yes. It fucking matters.”

“Do you know anything about quantum mechanics, most specifically, quantum teleportation theory?”

“No.”

“Thank you for not pretending. We can push on to more important matters: the state of the experiment thus far.”

Ice water flooded Hutch’s veins at the word experiment.

“Two thousand years of near total peace has left our Empire hungry for new horizons. Our lunar colony grows, and the missions to Mars continue at a fine pace. It turns out,” Cohen said jovially, “that peace is profitable. Efficient. World population has never been higher, and the plebes have their bread and circuses. The United Provinces Police Force has plenty to keep them busy. But our various branches of the military weep that there are no more worlds for them to conquer; thus, road building and the occasional civil war or provincial rebellion begin to bore them. In time – soon, I believe – we will seek out enemies to defeat in the great vastness of space.”

“I may know nothing about teleportation,” Hutch said, “but I do know there’s no oxygen in space. You can’t just launch a dingy from your mighty spacecraft and row down to a planet.”

Cohen turned away from his computer screen to address Hutch directly. “What if we could transport, in a blink of an eye, a man from the orbiting ship above to the planet’s surface below?”

“I’d say you’ve been reading too many comic books.”

Cohen frowned.

“Uh-oh,” Hutch thought. “I’ve offended the principal.”

“I have respected your intelligence, detective. I expect no less in return.”

Hutch nodded slowly, indicating he’d heard and intended to obey.

“The Science and Technology Directorate has taken the first steps on the road of teleportation science,” Cohen intoned gravely. “We can now transport a man, in that blink of an eye. Unfortunately, the subject is sent to another dimension. Another Earth. Similar to our own.”

“That’s crazy,” Hutch burst out, his good intentions short-lived.

“Allow me to elucidate. We’ve teleported three subjects: a convict, a United Provinces marine corps colonel, and a highly accomplished spy. After interrogation, we disposed of the convict’s counterpart.”

“Counterpart?” Hutch asked. He could feel his eyebrows unknitting slightly. He was interested, despite the danger surrounding him.

Cohen shifted in his chair, the fine leather creaking, reminding Hutch of the sound Starsky’s jacket made whenever he grabbed his partner by the collar and pulled him in for an embrace.

“There is a transfer,” Cohen elaborated. “Our operative leaves and his counterpart appears. Sadly, we could not retrieve our penal operative. Something to do with the balance of power – the give and take of the device.”

“Lucky guy.”

“We theorize he still roams free on Earth II but cannot be recalled because his counterpart no longer exists. In any case, all our attempts to retrieve him have failed.”

“What’s his name?”

“Jojo Forentic. Sexual deviant, but clever and fierce. Given a choice of being castrated and sent to the mines for life, he chose our little experiment.”

“You can’t be serious,” Hutch hissed, fingers sinking into red velvet, remembering the orange paint the sadist used to mark his victims. “He’s a dangerous psychopath, with rape, murder, and a little slice of cannibalism thrown in, to boot. If it weren’t for the—” He just caught himself before mentioning the “damned praetorians” involved in the case. “I mean, if Starsky and I had shot Jojo in the gutter, we’d have done the world a service.”

“But he did do our world a service, being the first human to undergo the Einstein-Erickson process.”

“What,” Hutch demanded, making no effort to hide the incredulity in his voice, “did you hope to gain by unleashing a psychotic criminal on an unsuspecting population?”

“You don’t place your best clay on the wheel of an inexperienced potter,” Cohen said with a shrug. “Our next subject was quite different. A volunteer with skills and experience we thought would give him an edge. Colonel Sondicus McPherson had a star-studded military career as a marine, but he was near his mandatory retirement age. Nevertheless, we believed that he was still sharp-witted, even if his body wasn’t what it once was.”

“And if he died,” Hutch thought tartly, “you wouldn’t be losing someone with thirty good years left in him.”

Cohen’s voice turned thoughtful. “The man that appeared in his place on our end of the device was a disheveled imbecile. Called himself ‘Colonel Sonny of the 105^th.’ There has never been a 105^th Legion. If his wild ramblings can be believed, Earth II has had two world wars. A wildly disruptive atomic era. An unmannerly planet in the grip of serious global shortages, instability, and provincial infighting.”

“If it were up to me, I’d lock the door on this place and throw away the key,” Hutch said.

“That is the opinion of several of our analysts,” Cohen said with a nod. “That we should take what we have learned from this part of the experiment and continue in a new direction.”

“Shutting down sounds like good advice. So, why do you need me?”

“There is a final task to be completed before we can ‘shut down.’”

“Then why not send a scientist?” Hutch challenged. “I’m just a cop.”

“We need someone made of sterner stuff than your average lab master.” Cohen looked at him humorlessly, his tone professorial. “You are a decorated detective and an excellent researcher. While you are on Earth II, you can prepare a summary of publicly available information on military capabilities, natural resources, population centers, weaknesses, and strengths of their political system or systems. All this intel could be invaluable and, perhaps, applicable here.”

The silence between them had stretched overlong. “What happened to your spy?” Hutch asked cagily. “Couldn’t he have answered all these questions for you?”

“He could have.”

“Did you kill his counterpart?”

“No.”

Hutch believed him. “Did your spy come back?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Cohen answered, his tone dark.

“Just tell me,” Hutch said.

“Our operative is named Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator. He is – was – an industrial spy for the Science and Technology Directorate.”

“Is he dead?”

“No,” Cohen answered flatly. “His counterpart is dead. Killed during the exchange. It wasn’t an accident. His neck was broken. By a professional.”

“Seems like your guy doesn’t want to come back. What does that have to do with me?” Hutch thought for a moment. The conclusion was obvious. “You want me to kill him. You’re sending me over to find him and kill him. Why does it matter? Don’t tell me this is a case of petty revenge.”

“Mariscalus knows things about our world that could be damaging in the wrong hands. It was he who found Elius Erickson at a tiny start-up firm, quietly working away on his side project – a device to transport grain in bulk.” Cohen got up, pacing between the fax machine and the desk, the first sign of agitation he’d shown since he’d entered the room. “Mariscalus is privy to too many details of the technology to be left alive on a rival Earth. He is vicious and paranoid and very smart. But this was to be his last assignment. Why? We suspect his increasing paranoia is due to some sort of dementia, whether age-induced or some other cause, it matters not. Our analysts predict that he will not be able to conceal his true nature and will eventually be taken into custody by the alternate Earth’s local authorities. What if he were to trade his freedom for information about our world? Backed by intimate knowledge of how to accomplish the transfer here?”

Hutch mused for a moment. He could see the sense in what Cohen was saying. “But, again, why me? And don’t give me the ‘I need a badass who knows how to take good notes in class’ bullshit. This is a job for an assassin.”

“I considered using your partner for this assignment.”

Hutch felt a hot flush creep up his neck. A bead of sweat rolled over his brow and into his eye. He shook his head, an unconscious no-no-no to everything – absolutely everything – he’d heard this morning. He wanted Starsky to have nothing to do with this shitty situation.

“Yes, this is a job for a detective,” Cohen continued. “And one who happens to be an assassin seems like a match made in Olympus. We do not know where Mariscalus has gone to ground. It could be anywhere, as he has had ten months to consolidate his position. It could take months to locate him. I know your partner well. I do not think Sergeant Starsky capable of reining in his true nature for the length of time it will take to accomplish this mission. He would be a lion amidst the gazelles. And a lion must eat.”

Hutch didn’t like it, but he agreed with Cohen’s assessment.

“That still doesn’t explain why you want me.”

“Why, Starsky, of course. It turns out your partner is an extraordinary man in both universes. Colonel Sonny knows your partner’s counterpart personally and thinks rather highly of him. I think your mission is far more likely to succeed with your partner by your side, even his counterpart, than any other man alone. And I think you will do anything to return to your Starsky, given that my operatives will put a bullet in his head if you fail in your mission.”

“And if I’m not quite as fond of Starsky as you think I am, what then?” Hutch asked coolly.

Cohen laid his hand on the red phone’s handset. “Starsky is in a bar having a beer with three of my operatives in New Jersey. Celebrating the end of another successful mission. Shall I call and order his immediate execution?”

“Followed by a bullet to my head,” Hutch thought. No wonder Dobey had told him not to bother packing.

There was no choice, really. He’d wanted Starsky for a year before they started shacking up. When he casually suggested they take the Theban Band oath, Starsky thought it was so they’d always be assigned together, not that his big bad blond partner with a hand cannon was incontrovertibly in love with him.

Love? It was an alien concept in their world, but one peddled to the plebes to keep them quiet. Your Emperor loves you! Hutch didn’t think Starsky even knew how to spell the word.

Cohen lifted the phone receiver from its cradle. Hutch placed his much larger hand over Cohen’s. “Don’t. I’ll go.”

“I knew you could be reasoned with,” Cohen said, a slight smile quirking the corners of his mouth. “Let us hope your counterpart is just as reasonable.”

Four hours later, Hutch got out of the prisoner transfer van. The trip had been alternately boring and terrifying, before and after reading Mariscalus’ dossier, respectively. He’d committed the important parts to memory. There were large gaps in the document, the most important being a current photograph of the spy. The one on file had been taken right before his last assignment. It was nearly sixteen years old.

To make matters worse, a terrific electrical storm had been building during Hutch’s journey. Tempestas, the storm Goddess, seemed determined to make his jaunt to the deep desert even more uncomfortable. The last hour of the drive was dogged by blinding flashes that preceded the rumble of thunder more reminiscent of artillery fire.

Hutch carefully surveyed these new surroundings. As scientific stations went, this one appeared pretty primitive, even to his inexperienced eyes. Cohen, an attendant slave in a gray lab coat and steel collar, two personal “operatives” – AKA bodyguards – and a driver were the only people in attendance. The facility consisted of a small concrete bunker, a Quonset hut, and a gravel parking lot, all surrounded by an electrified fence topped with shiny razor wire, undulled by weather or time. Hutch didn’t imagine this research station had been here long. He wondered if it would ever be used again following today’s “little experiment.”

They were forty milestones from the nearest town, which was nothing more than a wide spot in the road with a gas station called Eats. Everybody knew that the emperor owned thousands of hectares of desert in the New World Provinces. But who knew what kind of crazy shit went down out here in the middle of nowhere?

As Hutch was escorted down a set of cinderblock stairs to the bunker, he supposed he was about to find out.

Cohen’s driver, who led the small procession, gingerly carried a simple wooden box branded with a circular lightning bolt surrounded by a laurel wreath – which Hutch knew was the symbol of the Science and Technology Directorate – and the year: MCMLXXVIII. The driver placed the box on the bunker’s sole table before stepping back and standing at attention.

Unable to contain his curiosity, Hutch came up on his toes to better see over Cohen’s shoulder as he lifted the box’s lid. What he saw left him indifferent. Inside was a velvet-lined groove, filled with a short and bulky belt of thick metallic plates. The doctor lifted the belt easily enough, so Hutch presumed the rectangular plates were hollowed out, perhaps even filled with – what? Transistors?

“This is part of the device that is the key to opening the door between our worlds,” Cohen intoned. He motioned his slave over with a glance. Obviously well-trained, the slave took the device gently from his master’s hands. He waited patiently until Cohen nodded in Hutch’s direction.

Hutch bristled when Cohen’s assistant placed on his neck what he now recognized was a collar. Like he was some damned slave. It had taken every ounce of will he possessed not to snap the young man’s neck like a pencil.

“The device has been fully prepared,” explained Cohen solemnly. “If our weather satellites’ predictions are accurate, a storm of the appropriate magnitude will supply the correct charge—”

“Wait one Gods-be-damned minute,” Hutch protested. “Are you telling me you’ve wrapped a lightning rod around my neck—?”

“A very sophisticated ‘lightning rod’ that does much more than I have time to explain to you. Suffice to say that you will likely not be killed when you are struck by a billion volts of electricity.”

“My whole apartment runs on 120 volts,” Hutch said coolly, mouth dry, his face rigid, trying not to let it show, but knowing his fear had to be transparent.

“There is a combination of devices that will ground you, absorb the energy, and open the doorway to the other world,” Cohen said smoothly. “If we wanted to kill you, there are many, far less expensive ways to do it. Now listen! Time is short. Your counterpart will be drawn into the—” Cohen paused, as if searching the warehouse of his mind. “Let us imagine,” he continued after a moment, “that there is a space inside the doorways, something like a corridor. You will see each other in this space. You have the advantage of surprise. Push him through the doorway you entered, then leave by his doorway. This must happen quickly, or you both risk being trapped between the worlds. Pluto help you if that happens. No technology exists that can reopen a doorway to that specific corridor once its doors are closed.”

“Then how the fuck are you going to bring me back?” Hutch demanded.

“You must make sure you and your counterpart exit the corridor and proceed through the opposite doors.”

Hutch took a deep breath before speaking. “How. Will. You. Bring. Me. Back?”

“That will be accomplished by your counterpart,” Cohen instructed. “We will prepare him for the transfer, just as we have prepared you.”

“Just put a collar on his neck and push him into the lion’s den, eh,” Hutch said sarcastically.

“Exactly. Do you have any sensible questions before we go topside?”

“When will you recall me?”

“When there is another storm of appropriate magnitude, one that is also accompanied by solar flares. We estimate approximately nine months to one year.”

“A year!” Hutch’s thoughts galloped in step with his heart. “The UPPF is a tough job. If my twin gets killed in the line of duty, where does that leave me?”

“In a soft world ripe for the picking,” Cohen answered without missing a beat. “You would be a lion amongst sheep. But for the sake of your mission, you must wear sheepskin. Hide what you are. Blend in. Think of this as a long-term undercover assignment.”

“Easy for you to say,” Hutch thought angrily. “You’re not the sacrificial goat here.”

For a moment, he took stock of his circumstances. He’d been professionally searched by the bodyguards and relieved of all his weapons, official and unofficial: his magnum, of course, and the .22 hideout on his ankle, as well as his service dagger. They’d found the garrote hidden in his collar, the razor in his shoe, the stiletto with the flexible blade in his belt. They couldn’t take his badge, whose edge he’d honed razor sharp. His instincts had been spot-on when, on impulse, he’d left his badge and wallet with Sweet Alice. All he had with him were his wits and his shark-tooth necklace, which shouldn’t be sneezed at – he’d once blinded a perp with it when it seemed the man was gaining the upper hand, and Starsky was occupied chasing down a runner.

Hutch knew he could probably take out Cohen and one – maybe both – of his operatives. But the good doctor had as much as said that Starsky would be summarily executed should something mysterious or fatal happen to him in the desert.

“No choice, buddy,” Hutch told the absent Starsky mutely, his heart twisting in his chest as he imagined his handsome lover’s dark curls sodden with bits of skull and brain. “No choice at all.”

“What do I have to do?” Hutch asked, masking the defeat in his voice.

The wind whipped Hutch’s hair in a frenzy, tiny tines stabbing his eyes. He could feel the power and might of the growing electrical storm. The clouds were a tremulous ceiling, so low Hutch felt he could almost touch them. Each bundle of black and gray fleece took turns passing along its parcel of light, flashing like a dance club floor.

Hutch and Cohen’s small troop came to rest uneasily at the center of the flat roof.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hutch muttered.

After all the secrecy and talk of technology, the only thing on top of the bunker was a hump-backed crystal-covered disk about three feet in diameter at the base of an ordinary-looking lightning rod. The rod was topped with a pilum, making it look like a decorative spear in a tripod stand. The lightning rods at his father’s estate were decorated with images of Sol, the family’s patron God since, well, since the legions had waded ankle deep in Germanic blood in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The family lore went that his grandfather eighty generations back – a far-traveling Norse trader with a gift for languages who, therefore, had a good command of Latin – had convinced his captors he was a priest of their sun God, Sol, and escaped enslavement that day.

Whatever the truth, Hutch was grateful his family had been citizens for as long as there had been an Empire. And it was that pride that bristled when Cohen’s assistant picked up the short chain welded to the rod and moved to attach it to the collar that weighed Hutch’s neck.

“No fucking way,” Hutch announced.

“Master says I must—”

“Call your pet off, Cohen, or I’ll break his wrists and knees.” It was the slave’s turn to take a step back, looking at his master, raw fear evident.

“Stand down, Theo,” Cohen commanded loudly enough to be heard over the storm. “Put the chain on yourself then. Or not.” He shrugged. “There are many test subjects to be had. A world to choose from.” Cohen turned, his troop a clutch of chicks behind him. He stopped at the doorway that led down to the bunker, his hand on the knob. “I chose you because you are different, Detective Hutchinson. I did not select the first three failed subjects. My predecessor did. I want to live as much as you do, and for that, I need success.

“If you stay, you and your partner will die today,” Cohen continued, shouting above the tempest. “If you go, you may die. If you fail to return, your partner dies nine to twelve months from now.” He caught Hutch’s eyes with his own. “Stand on the disk and put on the chain. Complete your mission to kill Mariscalus. Then come back to us, Detective. I want to live.”

The door shut.

Hutch was left with nothing but the grit beneath his feet and a face needled by wind-catapulted sand. Like Cohen, he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want Starsky to, either.

Lightning touched down, not a thousand paces from his position.

“I could die up here, even without this crazy contraption around on my neck,” he thought.

Hutch stepped up onto the disk. He looked down, momentarily struck by its beauty; it was as if he stood upon a collection of the world’s largest diamonds. A rumble of thunder brought him back to himself. He grasped the end of the chain, aligned it with the D-ring built into the collar.

“This is for you, Starsk!” he screamed.

In a moment too swift to capture with the naked eye, Hutch’s world became one of white agony.

 

Chapter 2: I Came, I Saw, I Lost

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Monday, August 28, 1978, A.D.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve trimmed my little green beauties and removed any dead leaves, giving each one a drink sized just right. Cleaned the apartment, changed my sheets. Tried to read both the books I’m working on, The Westing Game and Storm Island, but the first takes more brain cells than I have at the moment, and the second has so damned many murders that I need a break from death.

You’re just grouchy because you’re hungry, I tell myself.

But I’m not hungry, even though it’s well past noon.

I could take a shower. Instead, I turn on the boob tube and flop down on the bed. Watch five commercials in a row: one for the Dodge Diplomat, the next for Wallpapers to Go! (which gives you a free houseplant when you place an order), another for Price’s Original Pimento Spread (ugh), one for smoked-glass coffee tables, and then a trailer for the second-run movie Good Guys Wear Black.

The last commercial reminds me of Starsky, ’cause I know he’ll want to go see the damned thing when he gets back from the leave he took to take care of his mom. We’ll be sitting in the dark theater, then as the credits roll he’ll ask, “How come we never took karate lessons as kids?” And I’ll say, “I was too busy playing hockey and baseball growing up in Minnesota.” And then he’ll say, “Yeah, I was too busy playing stickball in the streets and football in high school.” We have this same conversation every time we see a Chuck Norris film. Every. Single. Time. Then I’ll say, “Do you want to take karate lessons? I’ll go with you.” And then he’ll think for a moment and say, “Nah, I think the mojo we got going is working pretty good for us. Let’s not mess with success.”

Rampant commercialism has turned me off the idea of TV for now, so I fling myself off the bed and kill the television before something worse comes on, like a game show or a soap opera. I stomp off to the kitchen, open the fridge, and I still see the same five eggs, dried-up slice of pizza, and leftover potato soup sitting there. I went to the market yesterday, so my pantry is full of dry goods. If I wanted to raid the pantry, I could whip up something pretty easily, but I just don’t feel like cooking.

I shut the door harder than I should’ve, because if it’s me who breaks the fridge it’ll be me paying for repairs, since I bought the building last month. Yeah. I’m a Bay City homeowner. Well, me and the bank. It was a helluva stretch on a cop’s salary of twenty-two thou a year but, thankfully, the two businesses below my apartment have been there forever, and the tenant in the apartment beside mine doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere. Between the big down payment I’d scraped together by driving crap cars, some leftover money from my college trust fund set up by my grandfather, and the fact I have three steady tenants, the bank amazingly approved me.

Got the idea to buy when Starsky showed me that wreck of a cottage last October. When I asked him if he wanted me to live with him. That and John Blaine’s death set off a hot and heavy affair that lasted four months. Seems Starsky had been doing a lot of thinking about John Blaine. Seems Starsky thought that maybe – just maybe – two guys who spend seventy-five percent of their time together should have the courage to go all in and make it a hundred percent.

Best four months of my life, and that’s despite the fact I contracted the plague. When I saw Starsky’d written his name in lipstick on my room’s observation window, I thought . . . well, I thought he was ready for us to be together. Really together, consequences be damned. Then Jackson got killed by that rookie cop Stratton, and Starsky didn’t make any friends slapping Stratton’s ears back, and this set off a negative cascade with some of our good ol’ boy brothers in blue.

We’d made some actual enemies on the force, and I could feel it on my skin as clearly as the big storm front that’s moving in right now. It was then I began to cool things off with Starsky. We had a good Christmas, what I thought of as a last hurrah, and by the end of January, we were dating women again. All because I didn’t ever want to be on the radio, begging for backup that would never come, because real cops don’t help faggots with badges.

The thought of Starsky dying in my arms as we wait and wait and wait. . . .

That put things in perspective for me. Left a hole in my chest where my heart used to be. But I need Starsky alive and well more than I need him in my bed, even though there are many nights when I jerk off and whisper his name. Sometimes, I feel dirty sleeping with women – dishonest – using their bodies, when it’s Starsky warm, velvet-covered muscles that I crave. Nothing for it. I can survive a broken heart. I couldn’t live if something happened to Starsky that I could’ve prevented.

So here it is, almost a year later. No cottage for us. Starsky has his place, and I have mine.

When I look in the bathroom mirror, sometimes I feel like a fraud. I don’t like the guy looking back at me very much. I need to work on becoming someone else because the old me wants what he can’t have, and the new me needs to figure out who I’m going to be without the love of my life in my arms ever again.

“Enough!” I tell myself. “Quit going over the same ground again and again. You know you’re lonely for your partner. Give him a call. Check on his mom. Talk about Chuck Norris. Anything to stop this endless internal babble!”

But I’ve already talked to Starsky twice today. His usually bright voice sounded dull and gloomy. Alma is out of the hospital, but now all her care falls on Starsky, and he’s worried he’s going to screw up. I told him no one takes care of his loved ones better than him. There was a lengthy pause. He said, “Thanks, Hutch.” Then I could hear his mom hacking in the background, so I told him to go to her but to call me back later, which he did. If I call again, I’m going to sound needy.

“Stuff it,” I say out loud. “I’m going for a walk.”

I take a quick glance at the skylights and see roiling clouds, but no lightning or rain. It’s too warm for a jacket. Even with the stiff breeze, my t-shirt’s enough. But that means, unless I want to stick my magnum down the front of my pants like a Pancho Villa caricature, I’ll have to leave my gun at home. Open carry makes people too nervous when you’re out of uniform. It’s only four blocks to the beach. I’ll take a quick walk to clear my head, come right back. Twenty minutes, tops. Nothing bad is going to happen in twenty minutes.

I head out into what looks like a hell of a storm that’s brewing, trying not to think about what it felt like when Starsky stroked my cock, our lips locked together, as he took me to heaven.

 

Chapter III: Fraternitas Extraneorum

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Wednesday, 30 August 1978, J.C.

I wake up in a hospital bed with Starsky sitting by my side. Not an unusual situation, except I can’t remember how I got there.

“Dobey tells me,” Starsky says coolly, “that you had a little run-in with IA.”

“Internal Affairs? What would they want from me?”

“I did?” I’m feeling more awake by the second, but damned If I can remember seeing Simonetti’s ugly mug in the recent past. “What for? And what happened? Why am I in the hospital?”

“I thought maybe you could tell me,” Starsky says softly, but with none of his usual warmth. In fact, his eyes are slits, like he’s talking to a perp. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness for two days.”

I pass my hand over my torso, neck, face, searching for injuries, but not finding anything except a puffy left eye, like I’d taken a cheap shot, and a general whole-body achiness, kind of like when you’re coming down with the flu. But try as I might, the last thing I can remember was walking on a stormy Venice beach, alone, because Starsky was on leave, visiting his sick mom out East.

“Starsk, what’s going on? When did you get back? How did I get here? And what’s wrong with me?”

The cool mask, like that of a stranger, observes me for a moment, then lifts, and my partner is back. Starsky takes my hand, clamps it tight, like he’s afraid I’m going to slip away.

“I wrapped up things up out east quicker than I thought,” he says. “As for you, a couple of do-gooders found you unconscious in the desert, an hour outside of town. Dropped you at a ranger station who called in a medivac ’copter. The rangers guessed you were out hiking and got struck by lightning.”

I can feel a frown kinking my face. I can’t remember any of this. “What?”

“You know: ‘Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening?’” Starsky sing-songs, before he cracks a small smile, heralding his Bogart imitation. “Tell me, schweetheart, you wanna hear the joke about the lightning shtorm?”

I give Starsky my best “don’t screw with me” grimace.

“Probably not! The end is too shocking!”

“Pah-da-dunt-tah!” I answer, clashing an invisible cymbal with my free hand.

“So,” Starsky says, dropping his voice, speaking hardly above a whisper, his lips barely moving, “You really don’t remember meeting with Simonetti? Or anyone else from IA?”

Whispers are catching and I answer likewise. “No.”

“No hiking trip?”

“No.”

“Lightning?”

I pause. Drop my eyes. It’s hard to think with Starsky staring at me like he wants to eat me. “I-I remember something, Starsk. A white light . . . and some guy. He grabbed me. I fought back, but—” I touch my left eye. Shrug. “He got the drop on me.”

“I’m gonna cut out the eye of whoever fucked you up before I kill ’em,” Starsky growls, his face turning nearly purple. It’s not a look I’ve seen on him before. I must be more hurt than I realize if Starsky is this mad.

I’m just about to comfort Starsky, tell him it’s no big, that I’m okay, when the door opens and it’s our old friend Dr. Franklin. I open my fingers to let go of Starsky’s hand, but he clenches down on mine, as if daring the doctor to say something.

“Hi, Doc,” I say. “Been a minute since we last met.” Franklin ignores what I’ve said and, for that matter, ignores Starsky too. The doctor comes to the bedside, lowers the rail, and takes my pulse, paying more attention to his watch than to me. Evidently satisfied that I’m alive, Franklin reaches towards my face and, with what sure feels like malicious intent, pushes down on my left cheekbone.

“Ow!” I protest, pulling away. It doesn’t deter the doctor. He roughly fingers the bones surrounding my eye.

“Nothing broken,” he announces.

“No thanks to you,” I say.

“I see you’ve got your usual terrific bedside manner, Doc,” Starsky broadcasts. “But keep it at a certain level, all right?”

Starsky lets go of my hand and pats something on his belt. It’s not a holster for a gun. I see it’s a sheath for a knife. A very officious and dangerous-looking dagger, like something the Sharks and the Jets might use in a rumble. Not a lot of unemployed male Rockette gang members in downtown Bay City, so I wonder why my partner is packing such a strange weapon. I didn’t even know Starsky owned a dagger. Weird.

“Duly noted, Detective,” Franklin answers, pulling a penlight from the top pocket of his lab coat. “I should get hazard pay, treating you two. I think I’ll submit the forms. See if I get lucky.”

I don’t quite know what to make of this, as Starsky retakes my hand. Some kind of strange in-joke between him and my partner? I’m not sure. But as the doctor bends over me, penlight at the ready, I notice several things at once: the smell of bourbon, a five o’clock shadow that looks three days old, and an insignia on his lab coat I don’t recognize but should know, considering how much time Starsky and I have spent at Memorial Hospital in the line of duty.

There’s Franklin’s name, stitched into his coat, as you would expect, but below it is some kind of bizarre caduceus. Instead of a wand there’s a spear, and instead of two snakes facing each other, one is pierced by the spear and the surviving snake is starting to eat its dead partner.

What the hell?

Then Franklin’s thumb and finger roughly pull back my eyelids before he flashes the penlight directly into my left eye, then the right. “Bit of concussion. Not unexpected.”

“What’re we looking at here, Doc?” Starsky asks.

“A man who’s been touched by Jupiter himself and lived to tell the tale,” he answers abrasively.

“No shit, genius. What else you got?”

“We still don’t know why nine out of ten men live and the tenth one dies with a lightning strike,” Franklin answers with a shrug. “I’m inclined to believe the blow to his eye is the cause of his concussion, rather than his atmospheric accident.”

“There gonna be any long-term effects?” Starsky asks softly.

For some reason I can’t fathom, Franklin mirrors his tone. “Memory loss is likely. Chronic pain possible. Confusion and distractibility. Even personality changes. These are all worst-case scenarios, mind you. He might also have some tingling or numbness in his extremities.”

“I’m right here, Doc,” I say giving a little wave. “No one likes to be talked over like they’re not there. And I don’t have any tingling.”

“If he does,” Franklin continues, still ignoring me, “it should clear up in a few weeks.”

“What’ll it cost me to keep all that heavy stuff out of your report?” Starsky says, even more softly than before.

“I give my repeat customers a discount,” Franklin replies after shooting his eyes to the left and the right, as if to confirm we’re alone. “Make it five hundred even and I’ll make him sound sick enough to be on furlough for a week, but not so sick as to be investigated by the Review Board.”

“Visit Sweet Alice over at Huggy’s place tomorrow night, just like last time, and she’ll have your cash and a little something extra for you.”

Franklin nods in agreement and shows his first emotion since entering the room: a small smile quirks up one corner of his mouth.

“Can I take him home?” Starsky asks, his face looking like he won’t take no for an answer.

“If this were a simple hiking accident, it would fall under the preventable injuries clause, but since his injury is considered an ‘Act of the Gods,’ he’s been given a full scope of tests and scans. They’re all normal.” Dr. Franklinstein turns and looks at me with bloodshot eyes. “You’re suspended from duty for a week. Take aspirin for any lingering headache and don’t call me in the morning. I’ll have my slave come to your address on file next Friday for a release-to-duty physical.”

Act of God? And slave?! What a shitty thing to call his nurse. Does he even know what he sounds like?

The doctor has barely left the room, without so much as a “fare thee well,” before I’m on about him to Starsky. “Did you hear that guy? He’s on something stronger than booze, buddy.”

“Probably pills,” Starsky agrees, at last letting go of my hand. He gets up from the chair and starts rummaging through the tiny closet, the kind you always see in hospital rooms. He pulls out my corduroys and a baggy orange Henley I have no memory of owning, much less putting on this morning. “Let’s get you clothed and then the fuck outta this place.”

I get dressed in front of Starsky like I have a thousand times before, but there’s something in the intensity of his gaze that feels different. But my head hurts too much to puzzle it out. I’m pulling on my boots when Starsky snaps open his buckle and slides that big honking knife off his belt. He hands me the weapon.

“Put it on,” he tells me, all business. “Whoever jumped you got everything. Even your badge.” His tone is dark. “Put it on, I said!”

I slide the knife onto my belt as he bends and pulls a small semi-auto pistol from an ankle holster and passes that to me, too. I don’t recognize the maker, Quirinus IV, but I can see the pistol holds seven 9 mm rounds.

“What are you waiting for, Hutchinson? And don’t start whining about preferring good, old-fashioned wheel guns. I’d give you my automatic, but my shoulder rig is set for a left-hand draw. So, take it so we can go. Now.”

I take the pistol and seat it in the small of my back, tucked just inside the waistband of my corduroys. Even as I’m comforted by the fact that I’m armed, ambulatory, and have my partner by my side, there’s an alarm going off in my head and my gut is telling me something is terribly, terribly wrong.

The alarm in my gut only gets louder as we work our way through the bowels of the hospital. Starsky leads, and I can tell he’s heading for the Emergency Room exit, close to the parking garage, which takes ten minutes off your leave time, compared to circling back and taking the main entrance.

“I’m gonna take the week off. Keep an eye on you, ’til the doc releases you for active duty.”

“Both of us out at the same time, with a stack of cases going cold?” I say. “Dobey will kill you.”

“As if,” Starsky snorts. “I’ve got too much on the captain to worry about getting killed. Besides, I’ve got some leave saved up.”

Got something on Cap – what does that even mean? But Starsky is really hustling, and I stretch my stride to catch up. “How do you have any leave left? You just spent the last two weeks taking care of your mom.” She’d just recovered from a bad bout of pneumonia, and Starsky’s cousin Sarah – who usually takes care of Alma – was out of town, taking her dream vacation in Jerusalem.

Starsky glances over his shoulder, gives me a funny look, then turns away with a short bark of laughter before turning his attention back to where we’re going. “You crack me up, Hutchinson. Well, while I was back East ‘taking care of Ma,’ I was also earning hazard pay and accelerated leave. If Dobey bitches, I’ll just call in a chit and that should be the end of it.”

Before I have time to even process what Starsky has just said, he stops abruptly and I crash into his back, full-tilt boogie.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going,” Starsky grouses. He shoots a quick peek around the corner, into the next corridor. I can’t see around Starsky, but I sure as hell can hear. Adding to my growing anxiety is the sound of weeping, manic cries, and honest-to-God screaming.

“What the hell?” I ask.

“Just Skell Alley,” Starsky announces casually. Skell. Cop talk for homeless beggars.

“Sounds like Hell Alley, to me.”

Starsky turns and looks at me, full on. His eyes are bright and hard. Like blue topaz, but a bad fake. The kind grown in a lab and not the warm, natural color I’m used to seeing.

“You ain’t right, Hutch,” Starsky says seriously, taking my wrist. I think he’s right. Nothing has been right since I woke up. “Just take a deep breath and try to keep up.”

We round the corner, and my estimation of Hell is not far off. There must be a dozen homeless people – men and women – handcuffed to gurneys that line the hallway. Some are nearly catatonic, others merely crying, streaky tears washing a double path down dirty faces. But some are truly hysterical.

“I’ve never been here before! Not me! Not me!” shrieks a skeletal woman with track-mark scars that look wide enough to have been put there by a blowtorch. She’s obviously been using for decades. She looks eighty but she’s probably closer to forty. That’s all I have time to catch, as Starsky’s pulling me along by brute force. The stench is terrible, when I open my mouth to catch a breath, so overwhelming that my nose can’t help but catch a whiff of sewer.

We’ve almost run the complete gauntlet when I see someone I know. I stop but am dragged two more steps before I shake my wrist loose from Starsky’s grasp. “Eddie, how did you end up here?” I ask, shocked at his condition. I’d seen him just a week ago on a Skid Row corner, dressed in nothing but his skivvies and a sandwich board that proclaimed, “The End of the World is Here.” Starsky and I took him to the Third Street Mission, saw to it that he got a shower, a set of clothes, a meal, and a hefty donation straight from my wallet to hurry it all along. Now he’s filthy, thinner than I’ve ever seen him, and his precious sign is missing.

“Detective Hutchinson?” Eddie asks, squinting at me like I’m a bright light. “That you?”

“Yeah. What happened? Why are you here?

“The end of the world finally caught up with me,” Eddie says softly, his tone one of resignation. “You know what they say, ‘Three strikes an’ yer out.’”

“C’mon, Hutch,” Starsky says, having done an about-face and come back for me. “We don’t got time to waste on End-of-the-World Eddie.”

The old man turns away from Starsky, as if he expects to be slapped, and before I can do much more than say, “See you around, Eddie,” Starsky has taken another hard left turn and pulled me along with him.

“You just ain’t right,” Starsky says, echoing his earlier sentiment. “I’ve got to get you home before anybody notices.”

What if he’s on to something? Maybe I took a harder shot to the head than I first thought.

But there’s no time for further thinking because a hard-faced nurse chooses this moment to come around a corner with her med cart. We nearly crash into her – we do jostle her cart of neatly lined-up hypodermic needles – but Starsky’s nimbleness saves the day. She casts a dirty look in our direction and keeps heading towards the corridor where the hospital obviously stores their non-paying homeless guests.

“Take care of Eddie first,” I call over my shoulder as, once again, Starsky propels me along. “He’s a sweet old guy.”

“Don’t worry, Hutch,” Starsky says strangely, softly, as we exit though the side door that leads to the ambulance entrance. I can see the Torino is parked just five spaces away. “It’s her job to take care of him.”

For a moment, a sick suspicion washes over me, but then Starsky opens the passenger seat door and bundles me into the car, and I shake it off. I scrabble on my seatbelt and sink into the comfort of the familiar leather seats. Then we’re squealing out of the parking garage like we’re on our way to a 2-11 in progress. I can tell by the direction he’s heading that Starsky is taking me home to Venice Place. My muscles ache. My head hurts. And not just from the cheap shot I’d taken.

But not everything is bad. Warmed by his body heat, I can smell Starsky’s cologne. Sandalwood. At least that’s normal.

“You must’ve lost your jacket, along with your gun and badge,” Starsky says, putting the heat on low.

It’s August 30th – at least, I think it is – and the city has had high daytime temperatures all week. However, as usual, Starsky knows what I need better than I do. It’s not so much that I’m cold but I feel naked without a jacket, without my shoulder holster, without my gun. I’m achy and tired and just want to go to sleep. But I have a concussion. I should try to stay awake.

Starsky’s edges up the heat again and in moments my eyelids are just too heavy to keep open.

“Don’t you dare fall sleep, Hutch.” He whacks my arm. Not gently. “We’ll be at your place soon.”

My eyes fly open. “Okay, okay! Just don’t hurt me anymore.”

“Poor baby,” he says, his tone softer. He caresses my thigh. “It’s my job, as your partner, to keep you awake and alive. I really don’t want to hit you again, so be a good boy, okay? You can sleep when I get you home, where I can monitor you. I’ve got my eye on you.” Normally, that would be comforting. But something about the way Starsky says it gives me a chill. “I’ve got my eye on you.” I’m starting to wonder if that’s a good thing.

I manage to stay conscious for the rest of the drive. It feels more like hours than minutes to get to Venice Beach, so I sigh with relief when I see my building. And I outright grin when Starsky gets a spot right in front.

Luck, thy name is Starsky.

“I think you’ve sold your soul to Satan, buddy,” I tell him, “in exchange for parking privileges on Earth.”

“Nobody with any brains parks in front of a cop’s building,” Starsky says matter-of-factly. “And don’t go invoking Christian gods. People will think you’ve converted.”

I open my mouth to protest, well, everything Starsky has just said, but I struggle to figure out where exactly to start. And then any hope of rebuttal is lost when I see letters, three feet tall, that stretch across the front of my apartment:

Venetia Plaza

“What’s happened to my building?” I snap, head whirling. Next thing I know, my whole world is tipping sideways.

“Will you quit complaining?” Starsky grouses, taking me by the elbow, saving me from falling out of the car and on to the sidewalk. I don’t know if he can feel my body shaking as he leads me towards the door, but I sure can. “They changed that a month ago. Probably want to cash in on the nostalgia craze.”

“Starsk,” I gasp, scanning up and down the street, which seems . . . okay enough. The crêpe place beneath my apartment appears to be fine, thank God, and the restaurant to the right looks the same. “It wasn’t like that this – uh, I mean, the other morning.”

“C’mon, buddy.” Starsky picks up his pace, hustling me along, almost the bum’s rush, as he’s carrying at least half my weight. “Let’s get you inside.”

When I see that Starsky has his keys ready, I realize I’ve lost those, too. Damn it! It’s going to be a pain in the ass to replace everything, especially my ID. In a flash, he has me in the tiny vestibule at the foot of the stairs. He presses me against the wall, right hand on my shoulder, left hand on my jaw, holding my head up as I breathe deeply, trying not to throw up.

“Hey, blintz,” Starsky says, his voice simultaneously concerned and concrete. “What’s going on with you?”

“I-I don’t know,” I gasp.

That steely, squinty look comes back but is gone in a flash. “I’m gonna put you to bed and wake you up every couple of hours. Give that hard head of yours a chance to put itself back together.”

Bed and sleep. Yeah. Sounds like a good idea. “Okay,” I say.

Starsky releases me, and I would’ve stumbled if I hadn’t grabbed the handrail in time. My boots feel like they weigh a ton. Each step is an effort.

“Snap it up, will you?” Starsky goads, then he slaps my ass – not the manly press like you get on the football field, but a sharp, painful crack that reverberates in the narrow hall.

“Take it easy back there,” I complain, even as I comply and step up my pace.

“Not the first time you’ve said that.” I can hear the grin in Starsky’s voice, as his hand soothes the cheek he slapped. “I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

Despite my body feeling like it’s gone three rounds with Muhammad Ali, my heart swells in my chest, pushing my lungs aside. Starsky and I have always been close. Friends and enemies alike call us “handsy.” I miss what we had like I would miss my leg if it were amputated. I’ve asked myself a bunch of times what would it be like to be with Starsky permanently – my partner in everything. Except this. When I broke up with him, I was clear that I wouldn’t change my mind.

But it’s not the time to be thinking about this, my voice of inner wisdom shouts, even as the tiny thread of strength I have left is telling me it’s a very good idea. Then another idea hits me like a bucket of ice water.

What if Starsky’s renewed interest is part and parcel of all the craziness since I woke up?

The thought chills me to the bone, killing any hint of desire.

By now we’re at the top of the stairs, and Starsky pushes me to the side so he can uplock the door. I cross the threshold, just behind Starsky, and once again I’m caught in a wave of nausea. This is my apartment . . . but it’s not my apartment. I slam the door and I’m confronted by a poster of a gladiator – helmet, sword, leather skirt, the works. My coffee table cherubs are gone, replaced by a copy of the Notre-Dame gargoyles – grotesque and fearsome. My plants are the same, mostly, although I spy a stranger-to-me thorny cactus out of the corner of my eye. Then I see a woven wall hanging featuring a stylized sunburst with the letters SOL DEUS across the top. There’s a little table beneath with candles and figurines, like you might see in a palm-reader’s shop or one of those witchy stores that sell incense and herbs and statues of Greek gods.

“What the Hell’s going on?” I demand. “What kind of sick joke is this, Starsky? Did you and Huggy decide a Halloween prank would be a good idea?”

“What the fuck are you on about?” Starsky says, sliding off his jacket but most definitely leaving his shoulder holster on. The look on Starsky’s face – part anger, part concern, part something I can’t identify – is too real. This can’t be a prank gone horribly wrong. I stagger to the couch and sit down. Fall down, really.

“I’m gonna throw up. Get me something, Starsk. Fast.”

In a blink, he has the bathroom trash can under my head as I toss my cookies, his hand on my neck. He leaves when I heave a second time but returns quickly with a wet washcloth and a dry hand towel. “Get it all out, pal,” he says as a dry third round tries to strangle a bit more bile from my empty stomach. “Get it all out.”

I sit, stunned, docile, as Starsky wipes my mouth, mops my face, and pushes me over so I can stretch onto the couch. Next thing I know, my boots are being pulled off, my belt unbuckled and removed. Then he takes the semi-auto from my waistband.

“Concussions screw with your head,” Starsky says. “Everybody knows that. Just get some rest, partner. You’ll feel better soon.”

“I’m losing my mind,” I whisper. But Starsky either doesn’t hear me or he ignores what I’ve said.

I’m losing my mind.

 

Chapter 4:
Fraternity of Strangers

Dave Starsky
Brooklyn, New York
Monday, August 28, 1978, A.D.

“Gimme a minute, Ma,” I yell over the boom of Wheel of Fortune. “Somebody’s calling.”

Of course, I have to go all the way to the kitchen from the back bedroom to get the phone because my mother won’t pay for a second line. But with a little hustle, I manage to pick it up on the fifth ring. “Alma Starsky residence. Dave Starsky, Chief Bottle Washer, here.”

“Can the comedy, Starsky. It’s Dobey.” The captain’s voice is reassuring, but still serious.

I tense up. There’s only one reason my boss would call me while I’m taking care of my sick ma – something’s happened to Hutch.

“Cap’n.” It’s all I can manage to say around the knot in my throat.

“He’s all right.” We both know who “he” is.

“What happened?” I rasp. “Is he okay?”

“Don’t laugh, because I’m serious as a heart attack,” Dobey says. It’s a strange preamble. When have I ever laughed about Hutch getting hurt?

“He’s okay. Thank God—” Dobey begins.

“Cap, you’re killing me here. Tell me what happened to Hutch!”

“He was struck by lightning.”

I feel my jaw drop and I take a moment to crank it back up to the speaking position. “No kidding?”

“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

“How did it happen?” I ask. “Is he conscious? Is he in the hospital? How bad is he hurt?”

“If you’ll just shut up and listen, I’ll tell you.”

“Okay,” I say contritely, but what I want to do is reach through the phone and grab my boss by the collar and shake the answers out of him like change from a piggy bank.

“Hutch was walking on the beach, not far from his place. It’s been stormy for a couple of days here. No rain but a lot of heat lightning, and Hutch got hit. Bad luck of the draw. A couple of good Samaritans saw the whole thing. Called for an ambulance and the police, then stayed with him ’til the black and white arrived.” Dobey pauses, and I can hear him catching his breath, from all the way across the country. “He was unconscious when they brought him in, but he’s awake now.”

“Let me talk to him.” It’s not a request.

“He’s still in the ER,” Dobey says. ”Probably will be half the night. They’re running a bunch of tests. The minute they get him into a room, Huggy or I will make sure he calls you.”

“I gotta get on a plane,” I say, my mind racing. Maybe I can hire an aide or a nurse to sit with Ma ’til Sarah gets back.

“You will not get on a plane,” Dobey orders sternly. “Not tonight, not tomorrow, not even the day after. Hutch is a little shook-up. He asked for you right away, and I had to remind him you’re in New York with your mom. But Hutch told me himself to tell you he’s all right and that you’re to finish taking care of your mother or, to paraphrase, he’ll kill you.”

“That’s four more days,” I say, after doing a little mental math. “Five, if you count the whole day it’ll take me to travel back to the West Coast.”

“Just stand down, Starsky. Huggy and I have this. It’s strange, I’ll own to that, but there’s not a mark on him.”

“He’s not hurt? You’re certain?” I hold my breath, wanting to make sure I hear Dobey’s answer.

“He’s a little confused, but the doctors say that’s normal and it’ll clear up, probably in a day or two.”

My heart is pounding in my chest. I take two slow deep breaths, meditation-like, like Hutch is always telling me to do. He says it tells my brain there ain’t no saber-toothed tigers after me. I can hear Hutch talking inside my head, as clear as day: “When you’re pissed off or upset, you’ve got to put the brain back in the driver’s seat, Starsk. The quickest way to do that is to just breathe.”

“Okay,” I relent. “But only if I can talk to him soon.”

“As soon as he gets into a room and we can get him a phone, Starsky.”

“I’ll wait up,” I say, knowing I sound desperate.

“I know you will. So does Hutch.”

After Cap gives me the hospital contact info, I hang up and lean against the refrigerator, trying to calm my breathing. “Just breathe,” I remind myself.

After a moment, I pour Ma a cup of tea and head back to her bedroom. When she isn’t looking, nose deep in her teacup, I sneak down the volume on the TV a little.

I’ve got a phone call coming and I can’t miss it.

Ma’s asleep with the TV on, a rerun of Bonanza blaring. That’s okay. I’ve pulled a kitchen chair into the hallway, where I’m one step away from the phone and still able to keep my eye on Ma. It’s almost one in the morning, but still no call. I’m just about to dial the hospital and have the captain paged when the damned thing finally rings.

“Hutch.” It’s not a question. I know it’s him. Somehow, I just know.

“Starsk.” There’s a hiss on the line. Not a great connection, but good enough.

“How do you feel?” The hiss goes on for a second too long. “Hutch?”

“Tired,” Hutch says at last. “It’s been—” Another pause, which gives me pause. At last, he finishes his sentence. “It’s been a shitty day. I’m pretty beat up. Feel like I’ve gone three rounds with Cassius Clay.”

“Muhammad Ali,” I correct, sensing a small smile lift my lips. He must be a little loopy to make a mistake like that. “Get with the times, Hutchinson.”

“Sure. Whatever you say, Starsky.”

Now I’m worried. Hutch must be feeling puny if he’s not flipping back at me. “What do the docs have to say? How long are they keeping you?”

“Just observation overnight.”

“Huggy and Dobey with you?”

“Huggy’s still here,” Hutch says, “but I’m sending him home. I need someone to pick me up tomorrow, and he drew the lot for the duty.”

Drew the lot? That’s weird, even for Hutch.

“You don’t sound right,” I say. “Put Huggy on the phone.”

“Of course, I don’t sound right!” Hutch roars. “I’ve been fried by Mother Nature, drained by hospital vampires, and had each part of me except my balls scanned by every piece of equipment this damned gulag has to offer! If they think I’m paying for all this, they’ve got another thing coming.” The last bit fades away and then another voice replaces Hutch’s.

“Huggy Bear, the bear wrangler, at your service.”

“Finally, someone sensible to talk to,” I say, relieved.

“I heard that,” Hutch yells tinnily. “Don’t think I didn’t hear that, Starsky!”

“As sensible as you can be when you’re trapped in a room with a blond bear that’s stepped on a hornets’ nest,” Huggy says. I can practically hear his eyeballs rolling in their sockets and easily imagine him giving Hutch a long-suffering look. “Once he was fully conscious, all Hutch wanted to do was leave the hospital. Dobey ordered him to stay the night; overwise I think he’d’ve stepped ’em up and got the hell out of here by now.”

“Hutch hates hospitals, but not as much as me,” I say, puzzled. “Normally, he sucks it up and starts flirting with the nurses to pass the time. Or sleeps.”

“Well, there ain’t been no flirting or sleeping, ’cause the staff’s been keeping our guy busy since he got here,” Huggy says. “But he’s winding down now. I’m gonna sit with him ’til he falls out, then come back in the morning, after the docs have done their rounds. I’ll take him home.”

“Dobey says he’s okay.” I zip my lip for a moment. “Can he still hear me?” I whisper.

“No,” Huggy answers. “Someone came in. Takin’ his blood pressure. Better his than mine.” I can hear the frustration in his tone.

“Is Hutch really okay?” I get nervous when he doesn’t answer right away.

“He’s just. . . .”

“Just what?”

“He’s just not himself,” Huggy says at last.

Something about the way he says it makes me shudder. “Sounds like I need to get back to Bay City, pronto.”

“I don’t know, Starsky,” Huggy says, his voice sounding thoughtful. “You didn’t hear him talkin’ to Dobey. Man! Was he angry that the Cap’n was callin’ you? You damned right he was. If he wasn’t so shagged out, I think he would’ve thrown a punch at him.”

“He was mixing it up with Dobey?” My partner is a force to be reckoned with when he’s angry, but why would he be pissed that Dobey was calling me?

“The Hutchinson finger made an appearance and came back for an encore,” Huggy answers.

I snort with laughter, despite how grim I’m feeling. If I had a hundred bucks for every time the Hutchinson finger showed up, I’d have enough money for a good down payment on a house.

“I just need to know if Hutch needs me to come home.”

“Why don’t you call him in the mornin’ and ask him yourself? Room 214,” Huggy says. “Not like you can leave your mom alone in the middle of the night, right?”

“Right,” I concede. “Thanks for being there with him, especially since I can’t be.”

“No problem, my brother.”

“Can you put him back on the line?”

“At your service,” Huggy says. “Oh, Detective Hutchinson – you’ve got a caller.”

There’s a scrambling sound, as the receiver is handed off, and then all I hear is the hiss and soft breathing.

“Hutch? You there?”

“Yeah, Starsky.”

“I’ve got a few loose ends to tie up here,” I tell him. “But give me a day to set some things in place and I’ll come—”

“You will not come back to Bay City one second sooner than planned or so help me, Starsky, I will break that freaky left hand of yours into so many pieces that you’ll have to learn how to jerk off with the right one like a normal person. Do you hear me?”

I don’t like what I’m hearing. But there’s no talking to Hutch when he’s fighting mad. “I’ll call you in the morning,” I say. “We can talk about it then.”

“Fine,” Hutch says before he hangs up on me.

After last night’s reception, I’m almost afraid to talk to Hutch, but at noon sharp (9:00 a.m. West Coast time) I call the hospital, ask for room 214, and there’s my blond blintz on the other end of the line.

“Starsk?”

I can’t help but snicker, my anxiety easing a little. “How’d you know it was me?”

“Who else was it gonna be, dummy?” Hutch says, but without any fire behind it – the total opposite of last night’s attitude.

“How do you feel?”

“Better.”

“Just ‘better’?” I ask.

“After yesterday, better’s a big improvement.”

“Have the doctors made their rounds?”

“Yeah. Hey! Guess who came to see me this morning?” Hutch asks brightly.

“Marlene Dietrich.”

Hutch huffs.

He must be feeling better if he’s huffing at me.

“Our old friend Dr. Franklin,” Hutch says, sounding as surprised as I feel.

“I thought he was their mystery-poison-chemical-neurology guy.”

“Me too,” Hutch says. “But he told me he makes an exception for us. Says he likes the ‘weird cases.’”

“If he likes weird cases, he should be a cop, not a doc,” I say.

“I said the same thing!”

That makes me smile.

“About last night—” Hutch begins, then falters. I wonder if he can hear me smiling, because his whole tone has changed again. “I was an ass.”

“Well,” I say, dragging it out. “You know what Bruce Lee said.”

“No, I don’t. What did Bruce Lee say?”

“‘If you make an ass out of yourself, there’ll always be someone to ride with you.’”

Now I can hear Hutch smiling.

“You still willing to ride with me, partner?” Hutch asks.

“I reckon. Until someone better comes along.”

There’s a long pause and I think the line’s gone dead until I hear Hutch say, “I understand.”

“Do you, you know, need me to come home?”

“If I did, I would ask,” Hutch says, his tone darker than it was a moment ago. The next thing I hear is a commotion on the other end of the line – a quick “wait a second” from Hutch – then some muffled talk I can’t quite make out.

Hutch is back. “I gotta go, Starsk. Huggy’s here and he doesn’t look too happy with me.”

“You got that right,” I hear Huggy say in the background. “I would’ve called you a cab but didn’t want to get sued by the cabbie when you mauled him.”

“Be on your best behavior,” I advise. “Sounds like ‘The Mean Mistreater’ has come to get you instead of Huggy.”

“Yeah,” Hutch says. “Let me go. I gotta eat some more crow.”

“Call me when you get home.”

“Okay.”

Then he’s gone.

The beep-beep-beep of the phone brings me back to myself. I can figure this out. Just got to be in two places at once. Easy-peasy.

I have to take a leak, so I go to the bathroom and take care of business. As I’m washing my hands, I get a good look at my face in the mirror, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. Maybe I could trust Nicky to watch Ma for a few days. But then it’s like Hutch is there, spouting unsolicited advice all too seriously: I wouldn’t trust Nicky to water my plants, much less take care of Alma. I want to tell that voice in my head he’s wrong, that Nicky ain’t so bad. But I would be lying. Nick never once came to see Ma in the hospital, and the one time he came to visit her at home he brought a bouquet of roses, forgetting she was allergic to them, then proceeded to spend all his time in the kitchen on the phone “setting up a deal.”

Hutch would kill me if I left Ma with Nicky.

“David? David? Are you up?”

“Yeah, Ma,” I call, shutting off the water.

“Can you change the station for me, sweetheart? I want to watch Channel 5 News.”

Ma is doing a lot better, but even this little bit of talking has set her coughing off. She sounds like a one-woman TB ward. That decides it for me. I’m gonna have to take Hutch at his word that he’s okay for a few days and wait until Sarah gets back.

I change the channel, then help Ma sit up in her recliner, the one I dragged in here from the living room. It’s the same one I’ve been sleeping in every night.

“I’m gonna make lunch. You all right for a few minutes?” I ask, giving her a kiss on the forehead, just like she used to do for me when I was little and home sick.

“Of course.” She pats my cheek, then cranes her head to peep around me at the television. Seems she has a crush on the TV news anchor, Morty something-or-other. I retreat to the kitchen, well aware I’ve been replaced for at least the next half hour.

While my future stepfather is yakking about the heatwave gripping the East Coast, I pull Ma’s phonebook off the top of the fridge and thumb through the pages until I find American Airlines. It’s Wednesday, and Sarah will be back Sunday evening around eight. If I hustle, I can make the red-eye from JFK to Bay City. An hour to the airport, an hour in the airport, about six hours in the air, and an hour from the airport to Hutch’s place. . . .

I do the math, subtract the time difference, and figure I can be at Hutch’s place by five-ish Monday morning, depending on traffic. I dial the airline’s number but have to endure repeated playings of the corporate jingle until a ticketing agent answers. In the course of the call, helpful Cathy puts me on hold three times – it’s the damned jingle again! – before delivering the wonderful news: I have to pay a change fee.

When I hang up the phone – finally – it takes me a few minutes to realize I’m humming the stupid airline jingle: From the sunrise in the east, to the sunset in the west, we’re American Airlines, doing what we do best!

Man, I hope I’m doing what’s best.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Same Day

Once he heard the downstairs door slam shut behind Huggy, Hutch lurched to his feet and started exploring “his” apartment. Looked for his magnum and found it right away in the closet by the front door. As he put on his shoulder holster, he studied the poster on the back of his front entryway. Strange. The athlete was all clothed and padded. Wore a plastic helmet. And no weapon in sight.

“Looks like a sport for women,” he scoffed.

He took a slow walking tour of the main room. It was hard to miss the piano. Not the style he was used to, but he’d had lessons as a child; just hadn’t kept it up.

He noted there were plants, but not-him-Hutch had more of the flowering variety than he did. And Cicero, him-Hutch’s big cactus, was missing.

He found himself actually liking the statue of Cupid and his little friend, but not as much as he liked his gargoyles back home. It appeared as though his lesser “twin” worshiped Love and Desire, which he felt was a strange choice for a cop. All the police in his precinct paid public homage to Justicia, although many worshiped Mercury, the God of Abundance and Thieves, in private. And given that far more cops were on the take than not, it was easy to see why the Wing-footed One was so popular.

Starsky paid lip service to Mars, like any good legionary did, but Hutch thought his wily partner believed in himself, mostly, and left religion to the priests and priestesses. Starsky was only a third-generation citizen – long enough that he could get a good job after his military service, but short enough that he could remember his grandmother was first a slave. She’d scrimped and saved and bought her freedom, then had the good luck to marry well. Her children were born free, the sons of a citizen, and therefore citizens themselves. But he kept no shrine of any kind in his apartment.

And nor, it appeared, did Earth II’s Hutch.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson searched every inch of space and found no trace of his double’s family shrine, which left him vaguely disconcerted. He didn’t even see any family photographs. The lone picture was of “him” and Starsky on their backs, both of them smiling like loons. Lots of what he supposed passed for art was all over the walls and even piled on the floor of the bedroom area, but there was no family stuff. And that made him wonder what it would be like to call his – his? – parents.

Continuing his survey of the apartment, he spied the telephone, then searched for his little leather notebook of phone numbers. He found the slim volume in a kitchen drawer with a bunch of junk – pencils, old key chains, a set of small oblong penannulars unlike any he’d seen before, rubber bands, ticket stubs from old movies – and surmised it didn’t get much use. A bit more rooting around in the drawer unearthed a different kind of phonebook. One that included white pages and yellow pages.

He figured it was as good a place as any to start doing his job, so he looked up Army-Navy Stores.

Guns.

Hunting Supplies.

Libraries.

As an afterthought, he searched for Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator in the residential section. There were seventeen listings for the surnames Maris or Marais or D’Maris, twenty for Mariscal, and a round dozen for Mari, but not a single one for Iacobi or James.

Hutch had expected no other result. Mariscalus was a madman but not a sloppy one, so he was probably using an assumed name.

After jotting down all the addresses and phone numbers he’d deemed useful in his little black book, Hutch sat on one of the hard kitchen chairs to contemplate his next move – and felt the outline of a badge case against his right buttock. Because Hutch’s double had been carrying a shield during the transfer between worlds, Hutch had come “home” from the hospital with it.

He leaned forward and slid the leather case out of his back pocket. Opened it. Studied it. And wondered at how strange the similarities were between the badge of this alien world and the one he’d stowed in Alice’s nightstand. The eagle across the top and the surrounding laurel wreath for victory were virtually unchanged. The scrollwork with SERGEANT and POLICE was appropriate, though it was odd to see Arabic numerals – 12 – instead of his everyday XII. So alien, but every educated man knew and used both numbering systems interchangeably. He could see in his mind’s eye Starsky’s badge number: LXXXII. It would be 82 here. The most disconcerting difference was the total absence of the eponymous dagger that should bisect the shield, hilt upward, point down.

Hutch shut his eyes, dizzy – overwhelmed, really – at his bizarre situation. He panted lightly, as his gorge tried to rise into his throat. But after a moment, the feeling subsided, and he felt like he could continue his exploration.

On the bottom shelf of the coffee table were some magazines. He picked them up, skimmed the titles: LIFE (two copies), Psychology Today, Newsweek, and National Geographic. The last one reminded him of Explore the Empire – it even had the same gold border – but the others were strange. The psychology magazine looked like a bit of fluff, especially compared with the journal that came to him quarterly: Decimating the Criminal Mind.

“Humph,” Hutch huffed. He was unaware he was reading the words on the cover of Psychology Today aloud. “Imaginary Playmates: A Revised Look.” It displayed an image of a girl who could’ve been his daughter, if he’d had kids. Beside her was a transparent pink mouse the size of a Kodiak bear. If he’d had imaginary playmates, his father would have beaten the notion out of him.

The Newsweek cover story was about a new pontiff. After skimming the article (and noting how much more difficult it was to read, since these people used a combination of capital and miniscule letters), Hutch had the impression this old man wasn’t a member of the Collegium of Pontifex but the head of what seemed to be a thriving version of the Yeshua cult. “Cohen would want to know that Christianity is alive and doing quite well here,” he thought. It had only been legalized in his world during his childhood; he remembered “The Great Compromise” quite clearly. As long as Christians accepted that their “trinity” was a normal plural God and not a single deity, the Empire was only too happy to collect a special tax and let them worship whom they would.

Next, Hutch thumbed through LIFE: The Year in Pictures 1978. Farrah the Amazon was unmistakably Farrah Fawcett here. Elvis was dead. And two weird metal creatures called R2-D2 and C-3PO were part of a “Star War.” That reminded Hutch of Cohen. Made him wonder if the good doctor had been serious about taking the legions to space to look for enemies there. Probably was.

Further on in LIFE, Hutch recognized photos of King Tut. He’d corralled Starsky into seeing the museum show when it came to Bay City, and while he thought it had merit, all Starsky did was grouse about the bad security and how easy it would be to steal the gold funerary mask.

“But it’s cursed, Starsk,” Hutch had explained. “Everybody that’s tried to lift it has died.” He remembered Starsky snorting, “That’s the only thing keeping me from hijacking the boy king.” He might not keep a shrine in his home, but Hutch’s partner hosted a healthy dose of superstition.

The final magazine was worn, dogged-eared from repeated readings. It was a two-year-old issue of LIFE: REMARKABLE AMERICAN WOMEN. It appeared to be a recap of a hundred or so years of feminine heroics. There wasn’t a single naked picture to be found between the covers. It wasn’t difficult to deduce that his double liked women. As people. Hutch knew he’d just scratched the surface of his doppelganger, but already he was starting to sketch in the lines, to build a profile of the man he had to pretend to be in this world. He would need to figure out as much as possible about that other Hutch before Starsky returned from New York.

Having spent more than enough time perusing the meager collection of publications, he went back to hunting for items of higher importance. It wasn’t long before he located the other Hutch’s wallet and checkbook. The well-worn leather billfold contained paper money – five $1s, two $5s, two $10s, five $20s, and a $100 – which, he intuited, was based on a system of tens. Just what he was used to. This currency was supplemented by several cards: Master Charge, Visa, American Express, Sears. He called the numbers on the back of each of them and learned that his alternate paid off his cards every month, so he’d do that, as well.

He turned his attention to the checkbook and noted the address of “his” bank. If the register was to be believed, he had $2,011 in available cash.

The remainder of his apartment search revealed nothing of interest until he lifted the mattress and discovered a copy of a book titled The Joy of Gay Sex, a magazine called The Fag Rag, and an envelope with one thousand dollars in twenties. He took five of the twenties from the envelope, which he put back in its hiding spot, along with the magazine. He’d read that later.

The book, though . . . that he took the time to study without delay. The spine was broken in several places, and he allowed it to fall open where it willed: Fellatio, Frottage, LXIXing – he translated the number to 69 and chortled, getting the dirty joke. The two other pages that opened from considerable use depicted detailed illustrations of curly-haired men. Did that mean the man he’d replaced here on Earth II yearned for his Starsky? Or were they already lovers? Ultimately, Hutch decided he didn’t have enough evidence, but his felt-sense told him that if they were having sex on a regular basis, the book wouldn’t be stuffed in the place where most, if not all, little boys hid their naughty secrets.

Returning the book to its secret spot under the mattress, he felt it was well past time for him to wash the grime of the last 24 hours off his body. From his mind, too, truth be told. It took him a minute to figure out how to turn on the shower, having only ever used a steam room before. Then he had to puzzle out the bar of soap. Metics, freedmen, and slaves used soap because they had showers; most couldn’t afford steam rooms in their tiny apartments, and the public baths were for citizens only. He wanted to be offended that his double lived so cheaply, but conceded it was a quick way to get clean, especially if you didn’t have a partner to scrape you down.

Once clean, he checked out his double’s closet – and wasn’t impressed. Apart from lots of jeans, most of which were acceptable, the clothing was strange: sweaters with high necks that would cling suggestively to the torso, making it almost impossible to secret weapons or body armor. A raft of ugly plaids like the highland barbarians wore in ancient days. Leather coats and boots. And such ridiculous shoes! “Nike – victory,” Hutch murmured aloud. “As if.” But he spied a brown pair that looked decent enough, tried them on, and found them comfortable and supportive. He was sure he could run in them.

It was nearly noon by the time he was dressed. He’d chosen the loosest shirt in the least hideous blue-and-white plaid, a tan leather coat that ended at his fingertips, the Nikes, and a pair of too-tight jeans. Actually, the jeans fit well everywhere except in the crotch, as if they were made to highlight his stones and pillar. He stared at himself in the mirror and saw a stranger. The only thing that felt right was the Magnum snug in his armpit.

He was now ready to run some errands.

Hutch found what must be his double’s car keys resting on the hall tree’s tiny table. Down the stairs, out the door, and he was on the sidewalk, contemplating the four cars parked in front of the apartment: a station wagon sporting a Keep on Truckin’ bumper sticker; a forest green convertible; an actual gold Duster; and a battered, squash-colored Ford LTD. One of them was likely his to use for the next nine to twelve months – and he knew exactly which car it was. He walked a circle around the vehicle, not looking for booby traps so much as just looking. The back fenders on his Galaxy back home were a little flashier, no doubt about it, which made him like this car better, despite the pile of junk on the back seat. He’d tend to that later.

Because he was hungry now, and not just for food.

Following a fast lunch at Tacoria el Toro, he drove to the gun store farthest from his apartment. An hour of grim shopping produced a .22 Saturday Night Special, ammo, and two holsters: hip and ankle. Five bowstrings for garrots. A pocketknife. A box of safety razors.

Then he worked his way through the Army-Navy store but didn’t see much there that interested him except an olive-green jacket with many pockets, a black wool pea coat, and an antique dagger from the collector’s case in the back. Hutch had even talked the owner into throwing in a free whetstone, given the dullness of the blade.

He’d just put his latest purchases in the trunk of the car when he spied something called “Goodwill” across the street. It was there that he went on a bit of a buying spree, scoring a supply of clothes that would better suit his purposes: the “poncho” that reminded him of his cape back home; the Sombrero shirt displayed with it; a blue and gold bowling shirt, and another one the exact color of a peach, both baggy and bright, perfect to hide his stash of weapons, goofy enough to cause enemies to underestimate him; a dark wool cap with the label “Authentic Greek Fisherman’s Hat” inside; the silky, midnight-blue button-down the exact shade of his dress uniform back home.

As he stood in line with his haul, he looked down at the junk jewelry on display in a glass case.

He got closer to the register and started to notice some better stuff. A pair of dark round glasses. A metal claw decorated with oriental cloisonne, which, if he put a jump ring on one end and sharpened the other, would give him a pendant and a weapon. A puka shell necklace with a dangling shark’s tooth, so much like his own back home he felt a pang in his chest.

When it was his turn to pay, he enumerated his list of accessories for the checkout slave, who wore a heavy chain necklace and patched clothing.

“I’ll take that one. No, no, to the left. Yes, and the shark-tooth necklace. And that silver chain – it is silver, right? Good,” he replied at her nod. “I’ll take that, too. And the sunglasses.”

His last stop was the library. The woman who greeted him was just what he expected in a bibliotheca worker: older, deferential, soft-spoken, knowledgeable. Probably a freedwoman because she was wearing a simple string of fake pearls instead of a collar.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re closing in fifteen minutes. Is there something I can help you find?”

He’d thought about this all day, the best way to approach a most delicate subject. He’d made sure to come to the library most distant from the precinct. He would never come here again. When he needed further help, he would find a different bibliotheca.

“Why, yes, ma’am, you can help me,” Hutch said in a nasally, fastidious tone. “I’m writing a spy novel, but I need some reference books.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, seeming genuinely apologetic. “But we don’t lend out our reference books.”

“Oh, I know that,” Hutch lied. “I just want to make a list for my trip to the bookstore.”

Fourteen minutes later, he left with the names of four books. He escorted the woman to her car, ostensibly gallant, but really wanting to pump her for the location of the nearest bookstore.

“Oh, that’s easy,” she said, pointing to the corner. “Go to that stop sign, turn right, and in four blocks you’ll see a strip mall on the left. The place you want is called The Bookshelf.”

Hutch had already consigned the woman to the past as, twenty minutes later, he paid cash for three of the four books on his list. The fourth one – a guide to American data and statistics, by the CIA – was not an in-stock item, the salesclerk said, but he was happy to special order it for him. “It’ll arrive late this week.

Would you like for us to call you when it comes in?”

“No,” Hutch said, still disguising his voice. “I’m new in town. No phone service yet. But I’ll come back, say, Friday?”

“Perfect,” the kid behind the counter said with a smile. “Our big delivery comes Thursday.”

“Terrific,” Hutch said. “I’ll see you then.”

“Hey, mister,” the kid called out, just as Hutch was turning to leave. “You really like reading that heavy stuff?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said cautiously, wrinkling his nose, still in character. “Why do you ask?”

“If you’re worried about the state of the world, you ought to check out the environment. No need for any of the president’s men – or people altogether – if we don’t have a planet we can live on. Can you dig it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hutch said. “I can dig it. What do you have in mind?”

“Gimme a minute,” the kid said.

Hutch leaned on the counter, wondering why he even bothered waiting, but the clerk was back in a flash, holding a relatively slim hardback with a blueish-gray cover. The kid handed him the book: Silent Spring.

“What’s it about?” Hutch asked.

“The ecology, man,” the clerk said. He pointed to his yellow t-shirt, which featured a prominent green circle with what sort of looked like an upside-down Greek Ψ inside. “It’s about the chemical companies killing the natural world.”

“Killing the world,” Hutch thought. “Cohen would like that.” But he imagined Cohen would be shocked, not pleased, to learn that this government’s own spy agency published its secrets.

Hutch dug out his wallet. “I’ll take it.”

And, with that purchase, his reading list was set:

A Short History of the World

A History of the United States

All the President’s Men

The Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook 1978

Silent Spring

On the way back to the car, tomes in hand, Hutch couldn’t help but roll his eyes at his folly. He knew damned well he couldn’t perfectly memorize five books, cover to cover, in less than a year.

But he was sure he’d come pretty damned close.

When he entered the tiny lobby of Venice Place, arms laden with boxes and bags, Hutch could hear a phone ringing off the hook. It had to be coming from his apartment, he reasoned, and there was no question who the caller was. He cursed under his breath when the ringing stopped just as he reached his front door, but he’d no sooner crossed the threshold when the cacophony started up again. Dumping all his boxes and bags on the couch – except for the .22, which he’d strapped to his ankle five minutes after buying it – he picked up the phone, only slightly breathless from his dash up the flight of stairs.

“Yeah,” he said.

“‘Yeah’?” Starsky asked, sounding obviously pissed. “All you got to say is yeah? I was getting ready to post an all-points bulletin on your blond ass. I’ve already had a black and white do a safety check only to hear you’re missing from your apartment—”

“How’d they get into the apartment?” Hutch immediately regretted the growl that accompanied his words.

“Using the key over the door, you dummy!” Starsky shouted.

Hutch could only wonder what kind of a moron cop would leave a key over his door.

“I called Huggy, and he said he dropped you home, but you never called me back like you said you would, so I didn’t know what to think,” Starsky continued to shout. “I was imagining you on the floor dying from a brain bleed, and me not there—”

“I’m okay, mushbrain,” Hutch said loud enough to be heard over the shouting. “I’m okay. And. . . . ” He paused, searching for the words that would serve as soothing oil to pour over troubled waters. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I should have. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

A shadow crossed over his heart. The last time Hutch had said “sorry” was when he was twelve and his father had caned him for defying curfew. That apology had been wrung from him, not given freely but given, nonetheless. He wanted to be galled by breaking his streak, but something felt right about seeking forgiveness from the man who would be his partner for the next year. After all, Hutch conceded to himself, he had broken his promise.

“Huh,” Starsky responded, his voice lower in both volume and ire. “Not like you to give in so quickly. I’m not complaining, mind you. It’s just unexpected.”

“A man should be able to admit when he’s wrong,” Hutch said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He was testing the waters with this version of Starsky. His Starsky would tear the head off anyone – especially his partner – who even intimated he could feel fear, much less accuse him of being afraid. What would this Starsky do?

“Well, you did scare me.” This admission was followed by a cough, as though Starsky were clearing a lump in his throat. “What was so damned important that you couldn’t drop a dime?”

Hutch had no clue what “drop a dime” meant, but he was able to keep calm; his interrogation instructors had taught him to always answer questions you didn’t understand with a question of your own.

“How’s your mother?”

“I’ll let you change the subject this one time, blintz, but only because it’s about Ma,” Starsky said in a put-upon voice.

Hutch had never heard his Starsky use this tone. Never. It was unsettling.

“Sixty isn’t old,” Starsky said softly, as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “But Ma really worried me with this pneumonia. The hospital had her on oxygen and IVs and antibiotics, and for a few days there it felt like nothing was working. But you know all this.”

“Yeah,” Hutch lied, feeling stupid because of course this Starsky’s partner had called him to inquire about his mother’s health. Frequently, no doubt. “But how’s she doing today?”

“She’s still coughing, but she must be feeling better. She talked me through her famous chicken soup recipe.”

“No way,” Hutch said, hoping this was a noncommittal yet satisfying answer.

“Yeah, she did,” Starsky said, with something that sounded like excitement. His Starsky, Hutch thought, loved to eat, but he wasn’t the kind of man to show excitement over a bowl of chicken soup.

“Way to go, partner!” Hutch said, mustering up something he hoped sounded congratulatory. “You gonna come home and make some for me?”

“I wish I could,” Starsky said, his voice in a deeper register. “Sorry I’m not there. Tell me what happened.”

Ingrained in Hutch was the liars first rule: Tell as little as possible. And what you do tell, make sure it’s the truth.

“There’s not much to say,” he told Starsky. “I went for a walk. I woke up in the hospital.”

There was a rustling on the other end of the line that Hutch couldn’t identify.

“Didn’t they teach you in the Sea Scouts not to play outside in lightning storms?” Starsky asked.

To Hutch’s experienced ear, Starsky’s voice wasn’t right, and he didn’t know what that meant. “It wasn’t that bad when I left my place,” Hutch clarified. “The weather turned fast. One second I hear thunder, the next I’ve got Dobey and Huggy beside my gurney in the ER.”

Starsky cleared his throat.

“Hey, Gordo,” Hutch ventured, “you’re not crying over my ass, are you?”

“Is Starsky crying?” he asked himself. “Is such a thing even possible?”

Hutch, for his part, never cried. When his grandfather died, young Kenneth’s eyes remained as dry as the desert in the New World Provinces.

“No.” Starsky’s reply was gruff. “Um, did it hurt?”

“Did what hurt?”

“Brushing your teeth,” Starsky barked, his voice more like itself. “Getting lit-up like a Christmas tree, dumbass.”

Hutch closed his eyes, reached for that last moment when he was still at home, and his world made perfect sense. He remembered the agony, but imperfectly. Perfect memory would mean perfect pain, and he wanted no part of that, thanks.

“It was bad, Starsk. And then . . . nothing. Not even a scorch mark.” Hutch didn’t understand why he’d answered as he did. To admit to fear, pain, or weakness was unthinkable. At least, it was unthinkable where he came from. His Starsky wouldn’t have even asked if it hurt. He would’ve made a joke, mangling a line of dialog from one of those horrible old-time movies he enjoyed, spoken in a crappy imitation of the actor, to boot.

“Will there be any, you know,” Starsky stalled, “long-term problems?”

Hutch couldn’t believe his good luck. He had the best cover story he could’ve asked for, and it had the added cachet of coming directly from the doctor’s lips. With no hesitation, he delivered the litany of possible outcomes and let the silence hang while Starsky took the time he clearly needed to absorb what Hutch had said.

“Are you hurting now?” Starsky asked, finally finding his voice.

“Nothing two aspirins can’t fix.”

“Okay,” Starsky said, breathing a sigh of relief down the phone line. “So, I’m guessing no chronic pain or numbness?”

“Time will tell,” Hutch answered.

“What about memory loss? Do you feel like you’ve forgotten anything?”

“How would I know if I’d forgotten something?” Hutch said, intentionally allowing a little exasperation to filter through. “That’s your job, Gordo. If I forget something, remind me.”

“How am I supposed to tell the difference between your usual confusion and distractibility and lightning-induced confusion and distractibility? We’ve been partners for years and I still can’t keep up with your mood changes.”

“Starsky doesn’t sound mad,” Hutch thought. “He sounds concerned.”

“Look. Doc Franklin said these were all worst-case scenarios.” Hutch relented a little with his tone, infusing his voice with something that might be called comfort. “I was fine while I was out all day running errands. Picked up a couple of books to read while I’m off work this week. I promise I’ll stay put ’til you get back. I’ll call for pizza or oriental food—”

“Chinese food,” Starsky corrected.

“Chinese food,” Hutch repeated. “And I’ll keep my head down. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” Starsky said. “Sounds good. Just call me if, you know, you don’t feel right, okay?”

“Same time tomorrow?” Hutch asked, setting the limits of his tether.

“Same time. Bye, Hut—”

Hutch winced. He’d done it again. Hung up on “his” partner. Obviously, in this world, there was some sort of signoff ritual when speaking on the phone. He hadn’t even taken his hand off the receiver when it rang.

“Yeah,” Hutch said.

“Here’s the first thing you can remember to do: quit hanging up the fucking phone on me without saying fucking goodbye!”

“Okay,” Hutch answered roughly, responding to Starsky’s hostile tone. “Fucking goodbye!”

“Fucking goodbye to you, too!”

This time when Hutch hung up, a small smile crept up under his mustache.

“With this Starsky at my side,” he told himself, “maybe I can complete my mission.”

 

Chapter V: Peregrinus in Terra Aliena

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
7:59 a.m. Thursday, 31 August 1978, J.C.

I wake up to the smell of coffee. When I crack my eyes open, I see Starsky sitting on my coffee table, facing me, naked except for the smallest pair of black briefs imaginable.

“Figured you’d need these,” Starsky says, extending a cup with one hand and two aspirin with the other.

I grunt an affirmative and sit up just enough to take the coffee, sip off the top, hand the cup back to Starsky, then take the pills and wash them down. I flop onto my back and stare at the ceiling instead of my nearly naked partner.

“You remember me waking you up last night and this morning?”

“Do I?” I ask myself. I think for a moment and, yeah, I do remember being shook awake again and again.

I nod. “Thanks.”

“How’s your head feel?” Starsky asks, ignoring my thanks. “In fact, how does the whole chimichanga feel?”

I extend my arms over my head and give myself a good stretch, checking in with my body, trying to determine how hurt I am. “I feel a lot better than yesterday,” I answer. “Hardly any aches at all. A little headache, but nothing I can’t handle.” Then I remember my eye. I touch the puffy surface. “This is still tender,” I say. “How does it look?”

“What do you care what your eye looks like? What are you – a girl?” Starsky scoffs. “You can see out of it, right?”

“Yeah,” I huff, offended.

“So, don’t worry about it,” he says. Then he does a strange thing: he leans forward and gently traces the bruise on my cheek with his index finger, then draws it across my upper lip. “You still look beautiful to me. Even without the mustache.”

Suddenly, I’m awake enough to remember last night. How everything was right but somehow wrong, wrong, wrong. I sit up fast, dislodging the finger caressing me. I look around and see the big cactus beside the couch looming over me. “This isn’t my apartment!”

Starsky is looking at me sternly. “This has been your place since the yellow canal house was sold and you had to move. Over two years you’ve been here.”

I look around. Everything is the same, except where it isn’t.

I thought I dreamt this.

“I don’t know where this came from,” I say, hooking my thumb in the general direction of the cactus.

“Ol’ Cicero?” Starsky says, a hint of a smile dusting his lips. “I hate that fucker. He’s always stabbing me when I ain’t looking. If you want to get rid of it, give me the word and I’ll help you haul it to the restaurant dumpster out back.”

“I don’t want to murder an innocent plant—”

Starsky gives a snort of laughter, but I’m not deterred.

“—I just want to know why it’s here.” Then I look at the hall table and see the SOL DEUS hanging and the statue of two menacing creatures beneath. “What the hell is that?” I ask, pointing. Gargoyle horns are peeping around Starsky’s back as he shifts away from me. “And where are my cherubs?”

“You’re not screwing with me, are you?” Starsky asks, his tone incredulous. “You really don’t remember?”

I try. I try with all my might to remember. But this is not my home. “I don’t,” I say at last.

Starsky leaps up and begins to pace. “No big deal,” he mutters, more as if he’s talking to himself than to me. “The doc said you could have some memory problems. That’s right. But it’ll clear up. Just take some time.” He stops pacing and gives me a funny look, only not the “ha-ha” kind of funny. “Hey, you been though a lot. The cactus is just a plant, no big deal. We can take down the Hutchinson house shrine, if that’ll make you feel better, and if you want Cupids instead of gargoyles on your coffee table, we can head over to Statuary Street and pick something out for you. Okay? Just don’t freak out on me.”

He plops down on the couch, right by my side. His left arm snakes behind my back and the right covers my front. The next thing I know I’m in a bear hug so tight as to almost hurt. It takes me a moment to catch up, but I eventually hug him back. It feels strange to have an all-but-naked Starsky in my arms, but at the same time it also feels good. Natural.

“You gotta be okay, Hutch,” he whispers insistently into my ear. “You hear me? You gotta be okay.”

“Help me, Starsk,” I whisper back. “I feel like I’m going crazy.”

Starsky pushes me away, just one hard shove, and he’s on the other end of the sofa, as far away from me as he can get.

“You’re not crazy,” he tells me, his tone brooking no argument. “And you’re not gonna tell anyone else that you’re crazy, do you hear me?”

“Why not?” I ask. “Maybe I need to see a doctor or talk to someone about—”

“Do you need a bullet in the head?” Starsky hisses. “’Cause that’s what you’ll get from the department if they think you’re unfit for duty.”

“A bullet?” I ask, thinking I must have misunderstood him.

“That or sold off to the mines.” Starsky’s eyes are bright. Hard. I know this man like I know myself, and he wouldn’t lie to me. And if he did, I would know it.

He’s not lying.

“We might think we’re free, Hutch, but when we joined the UPPF, it was for life.”

“The UPPF? W-what’s the UP—?” I start to ask, but my partner cuts me off.

“Like you don’t know what the United Provinces Police Force is,” he sneers. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what we do for a living.”

“No, I know we’re c-c—”

“Yup, we’re both cops. That means something in Bay City. And I want us to keep being cops,” he intones heavily. “’Cause if you are not a cop, you’re nothing. Might as well take a bullet in the line of duty. At least that way I’d get your life insurance and pension.”

“Life insurance and p-pension?” I’m stuttering and I know it, both verbally and internally.

“That’s right!” Starsky yells. “We took a vow, and until one of us gets married to a woman, what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.”

“I-I don’t—”

“By all the Gods, Hutchinson, tell me you remember our sacred vow. That we’re part of the Theban Band. Tell me!”

Even though I’m still sitting on the couch, I instantly find myself in the library of my mind, groping for the words Theban Band. I find ancient Greece. City of Thebes. I recall something about Alexander the Great fighting them. Then I recall what titillated me so much in a college history course called The Ancient World: The Sacred Band of Thebes was an all-male fighting force made up of homosexual lovers. I remembered groaning with the rest of the class when the professor made a pun about “Homer-eroticism.”

I don’t know what to say, so I look at Starsky, sure that my face says what I can’t.

In a flash, he’s on his feet, his hands gripping the edge of the coffee table, flipping it over with such violence that plaster-of-Paris chunks break off the gargoyles and skitter across the floor. Regardless of the plaster chips everywhere, Starsky stomps through the debris barefoot. He goes to my bedroom. There’s a rattle as he retrieves something. Then he’s back. He sits down on the couch – not close, but not far from me, either. The knife Starsky gave me last night is now on the couch cushions between us. It’s out of its sheath, beautiful and lethal at the same time. I can’t help but notice a raised symbol on the haft – planet Earth, with a smaller knife piercing it.

When I look up, all I see is a Starsky I don’t know. I’ve never met the man who wears this face of stone. Death, I think. I’m looking at death. For a moment I’m scared, then I’m furious.

“What’s wrong with you?” I bellow. “What are you, a two-year-old?” I point to the mess he’s made. “Why don’t you go three rounds with the cactus, if you’re feeling badass, and leave the furniture alone? I don’t know what game you’re playing, Starsky, but you better get to the end of it mighty quick.”

“When did we first meet, Hutch?” Starsky’s voice is calm, his register low.

The change in demeanor is a bit unnerving, but I play along. “You always say we met on our first day at the Academy, but it was actually the night before at the new-class mixer. You were trying to mark time with a blonde instructor who was treating you like pond scum, but you didn’t let that deter you. In any case, you had no time for me.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Starsky says, his tone still flat. “What was our worst case?”

“He’s testing me!” One look at the knife between us tells me I’d better be a star student or get ready to take a knife to my partner.

“Vic Bellamy,” I say without pause. “He poisoned you on behalf of Professor Jennings.”

“I’d have said Vic Humphries,” Starsky retorts. “Who was that?”

“Just a sleazeball who paid a hitman to take me and my car out with a garbage truck.”

Starsky’s right hand touches his left shoulder blade. There’s a healed wound there, dark pink but working on fading to white. “Where’d I get this?”

“Joey Martin,” I answer fast. “A mob hit gone haywire in that Italian restaurant you like down on the docks. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The stone of Starsky’s face is transforming back to flesh, but I can tell he’s still not convinced. Whatever he’s looking for, I haven’t given it to him.

“Anyone who’s read our files could answer these questions,” he says. “What’d you say to me before we went to the restaurant?”

“What did I say? That was a long time ago,” I protest.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Starsky says, placing his hand on the hilt of the knife. “You wanted to do something else. But I wasn’t ready.”

I wanted to do something else? What? I try to picture that night. I close my eyes and take two deep breaths and free associate. Rain. Long day. It’s late. I’m tired. We’re both tired. Hours since we’ve eaten. I don’t want to go out, I want to. . . .  Then it comes to me. I open my eyes and stare at Starsky full-on. “I said, ‘Let’s scramble some eggs at my place.’”

“Okay, right. That’s what you said.” He picks up the dagger, reverses it mid-air, then throws it across the room. It hits point first in the lintel over my door and quivers there. “But I heard something else. I heard, ‘Come spend the night with me.’”

I can feel my heart racing in my chest. Nearly two years ago. Is that what I really meant then? Yeah, I say to myself. Yeah. That’s what you really meant.

“But I fucked it all up,” Starsky says. “Got hurt. Had to heal up. Then, about a month later, there was that armored car heist.”

“I remember.”

“We were going out to breakfast ’cause I needed a wingman for that astrology chick I was trying to bang,” Starsky says.

“Instead of breakfast we had a dead body,” I pronounce, looking down at my hands. My heart is beating so hard I can see the pulse-points in my wrists flutter.

“Tom Cole lost his partner that day. All I could think about was how I’d feel if it was you. If it was you and we hadn’t ever, you know, had breakfast.” I look up. This face. This Starsky I know.

“You mean,” I say, “if we’d never made love.”

“Geez, Hutch,” Starsky says, voice suddenly full of exasperation. He runs a hand through his curls. “You’re not some good-time Saturday night girl. We’re guys. We fuck.”

“Don’t cheapen what we had,” I say, standing up, indicating this conversation is over. “We gave each other a lot of love, but I don’t remember fucking you—”

“’Cause it ain’t happened, pal. The opposite, in fact.”

“And I sure as shit don’t remember you fucking me.”

Starsky looks at me like I’ve slapped him.

“Now, if you’ll get the hell out, I’d like to be alone for a while,” I say, heading for the bathroom. I need to piss like a racehorse, and I want a shower more than I want the breath of life. I’m still cutting a stream when I hear the front door slam.

David Michahèl Starsky
8:45 a.m., Same Day

After dressing as if the Furies where after him, Starsky stomped out of Hutch’s apartment and hopped into the Torino.

“He’s gonna get us both killed,” he squeezed out through clenched teeth, jamming the car in gear before stomping on the gas. He didn’t even look before he pulled out. A taxi avoided rear-ending him by braking so hard that the front bumper kissed the pavement mere inches from Starsky’s vehicle. In a squeal of tires and a cloud of burnt rubber, the Torino was half a block away before the cabbie could even begin to curse him.

“He really is gonna get us killed,” Starsky repeated, louder this time, unaware he’d almost gotten himself killed in a traffic accident. Now that he was well away from Hutch’s apartment, he let up on the gas to a steady five-above the speed limit. No sense attracting the attention of his brothers in blue. If he were pulled over for speeding after hours, he’d have to pay the ticket, be flogged in the plaza publica just like everyone else or pay off the fucker who pulled him over. And he’d never liked giving those scumbags a brass obol.

It was then Starsky realized his hands were shaking. He gripped the steering wheel tighter. Hutch was the toughest cop he knew, next to himself. And smart. Not just book-smart, though his partner’s had that in spades. Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson had the rare ability to see the whole puzzle with just a few pieces on the board. And you didn’t learn that in school. You were born with it. Hutch was born with it and had worked hard to hone that ability razor sharp. If Starsky believed in oracles, he would swear Hutch had a touch of the second sight.

But something was terribly wrong with his partner. With his mind. Like someone took a hot knife and cut out strangely specific parts of his brain. How could Hutch remember what Vic Humphries did to him but had no clue what he and Starsky did – or didn’t do – to each other in bed? For a minute, Starsky had doubted that Hutch was even his partner. Which was damned crazy.

If Hutch really were going crazy, maybe Starsky was, too. Cutting his eyes to the rearview mirror, he asked, “So, what’re you gonna do about Hutch?”

When no answer was provided, Starsky cast his eyes back on the road and began to consider his very limited options.

If Hutch were too damaged to do his job, Starsky mused, the most sensible thing would be to report him to Dobey. His family back in the province of Minnesota might have enough political pull to – what? Get him transferred to Duluth? Which would mean Starsky getting transferred to the same city-precinct. The Force didn’t separate Thebans. And what would a transfer gain them but even more people who knew Hutch intimately, people who would quickly figure out something was seriously wrong with him?

“I gotta keep him on the job,” Starsky thought. “Here. In Bay City. He’s got to work, and he’s got to do what’s right – or else.”

Everyone worked in the Empire. Everyone. Even beggars paid for a license to solicit eleos, otherwise known as pity or compassion. The homeless weren’t even allowed to sleep outdoors, but if they were caught, they were taken to the county lockup and branded on their right forearms. “Three strikes and you’re out,” they’d be told. At least once a week, the UPPF loaded up a meat wagon and dropped the unlucky bastards at the local hospital for euthanasia.

It was no different than infant exposure, really. Just another form of retroactive abortion.

Starsky and Hutch had several skells on their payroll and were apt to cut them a break, especially when their info was juicy. In fact, Hutch was always giving them his spare change even when they didn’t have useful intel.

“Why did I have to fall for such a softie?” Starsky asked himself, not even meaning it. But, typically, skells were a daytime source of information. You usually couldn’t find your skell informants after dark. Most lived in the sewers or had an arrangement with a brothel if they were willing and able to take on the kinky trade.

Starsky cursed and took a hard right. Thinking about the sewers inspired some memories best forgotten.

When the homeless population got too high, business owners started complaining to the higher-ups about how the “human rats” were driving away trade in the middle of the day. Who’d want to buy bread from a bakery that had a skell who smelled like an outhouse on the doorstep? The Empire’s solution? Twice a year, the Academy recruits participated in a mandatory rat hunt in Bay City’s underground labyrinth. Squads of eight were turned loose in Shit City with one mandate: see how many skells each team could bag. It was a dirty, dangerous business, and the Academy lost one in ten recruits with this little practice. But it was a doubly useful decimation, and the Empire always strove for efficiency. Kill two birds with one stone: always too many skells, always too many police recruits.

Lots of would-be cops didn’t make the cut after the first semi-annual skell hunt. Having gone down there once, some just couldn’t hack Shit City again. This second decimation left few job opportunities for the coulda-shoulda-woulda-been academy dropouts: food service, private warehouse security, mall guard, lawn service, construction, prostitution – if you were lucky. Some former recruits found themselves lined up at Town Hall to buy an Eleos License.

“Strange,” Starsky thought, taking a hard left followed by a quick right. “Too chickenshit to go into the sewers armed but having to retreat there every night anyway.”

He and Hutch were in different units for the first rat hunt. Starsky’s squad cleared their sector in record time. Hutch’s team had the highest kill count. Starsky made sure to bribe the watch commander the next time so he could be in Hutch’s unit for the last rat hunt, the one right before graduation. Starsky remembered that night like it was yesterday.

“There are more germs in a human’s mouth than a dog’s,” Hutch had informed their eight-man squad. “Don’t let the rats get close. We’re here to put them down, fast and hard. These skells were people once and, believe it or not, we’re doing them a favor. But they know we’re here and they have nothing to lose by fighting back. So, no screwing around or I’ll cap your ankle and leave you behind to see how much you like having the tables turned. And that includes you, Starsky.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Starsky said with a lazy grin, his tactical vest topped by a bandolier holding two dozen slim, single-stack magazines, each loaded with eight rounds of 9-millimeter parabellum.

With eight more on board and one in the pipe, that gave Starsky exactly 201 rounds. And he’d intended each one of them to count. Hutch outranked him, being squad leader for the night, but they’d become good friends at the Academy. In fact, Hutch was the only friend he’d made during training. Contacts – yes. Associates – for sure. People he could bribe – you betcha. Or, even better, buy outright when the time came. Folks aplenty.

But only one friend.

Starsky almost bought it that night. He’d sprained his ankle badly when a rusted, slime-covered ladder pulled out of the wall as he climbed it to get to a better firing position. True skells – the scary Night of the Living Dead cannibal kind that never came out of the sewers – swarmed his position and almost had him for dinner. And they would have, too, if not for Hutch. After exhausting the six rounds in his wheel gun, the beautiful blond waded in with just his knife. Starsky watched half-stunned from the ground as Hutch cut throats left and right before reversing his hold and stabbing a skell, who’d grabbed him from behind, in the eye. Then Hutch was at his side, hauling him up, setting him on his feet, plastering his back to Starsky’s. Together, with Hutch’s knife-arm as his shield, Starsky took out every last skell in that sector of the sewer. Two magazines, sixteen kills, on top of what Hutch had added to the tally.

They were literally surrounded by a fence of bodies when the field observer found them covered in shit and laughing their heads off, Starsky’s arm slung over Hutch’s shoulder, Hutch’s arm circling Starsky’s waist, holding his weight off his damaged leg.

“You are the worst Tabula player in the world, Starsk!” Hutch had gasped out between fits of laughter.

“How,” Starsky remembered asking, choked by his own mirth, “how do you figure that?”

Hutch’s merriment suddenly played out. “Everybody knows you can’t leave a lone stone on the board,” he’d answered somberly. “A lone stone is vulnerable. It needs a buddy.”

“Looks like we got a set of stones,” Starsky said, mesmerized by the sky-blue eyes set in a weary, be-shatted face. “There really is something to that old saying about how a running man can cut a thousand throats in a single night,” he’d thought at the time. “Damn. I think I’m in love.”

Both he and Hutch earned their first, but certainly not their last, Argentum Stella Pro Valir – the Silver Star of Valor – and graduated with gold sashes, having tied for valedictorian.

Shaking off memories of better days, Starsky pulled the Torino over and put it in park, just now realizing his aimless drive was a lot less aimless than he’d intended. He was smackdab in the middle of Statuary Street.

The way he saw it, he had three options. The first? Stick to the status quo. Just keep working with Hutch, who would surely recover from his concussion any day now. Was it really a big deal that Hutch suddenly preferred gargoyles for cherubs? Maybe Starsky was making a mountain out of a mole hill.

The second choice was simple enough: he could hide Hutch’s disability. Keep him safe until he got his memory back or wised up enough to keep words like “crazy” from leaving his lips.

There were just six days left before they had to go back to work. Starsky hoped the doctor was right and that Hutch’s problems were temporary, because – if they weren’t – that left him with a third and final choice.

Murder-suicide.

Starsky was always brutally honest with himself. After that night in the sewers, he’d loved Hutch with every fiber of his being. A year later, when his partner had casually suggested they take the Theban vow so they could always work together, he’d agreed, feigning apathy but being secretly jubilant. He’d hidden his deep feelings from Hutch, and, by hiding them, protected him from the worst elements in Bay City, on and off the force – elements that would use his love for his partner against them both.

“I can’t imagine going on without him,” Starsky mused darkly. “And I won’t. But I’ll be sure to take out some motherfuckers who need to get dead before I go.”

Settled in mind and body, now that he’d weighed his options and planned his next moves, Starsky got out of his car, scanned the row of shops, and began his search for Love.

Heavy bundle tucked under his right arm, Starsky used his key to enter Hutch’s apartment. All was quiet and exactly as he’d left it, exactly what Starsky had expected.

He’d gotten fresh with Hutch one other time, early in their partnership, and busted up one of his kitchen chairs in a fit of anger that wasn’t even directed at his partner. He’d left the mess for Hutch’s cleaning service to take care of. Starsky hadn’t counted on Hutch telling the woman to leave it be. For three weeks that shattered chair had lain on the floor, a silent witness to his ill temper. Hutch was coolly polite when Starsky had come over for pizza or to watch the Games, calmly stepping over the mess as if it were invisible.

But Starsky knew he’d disrespected the sanctity of Hutch’s home. He’d struggled with what to do: clean up the mess he’d made or not? Would that make him look weak in Hutch’s eyes? He was no damned slave. On the other hand, it was his mess; he should clean it up, right? Obviously, Hutch expected him to do something. Finally, on a day they’d driven to the precinct separately (Hutch had a dentist’s appointment), Starsky came over before work and cleared out the pathetic remains of the kitchen chair. Did a good job, too – nothing half-assed. They left the Galaxy at the station after work that day and drove to Hutch’s apartment together. Starsky wanted to see Hutch’s reaction.

Whatever he was expecting, Starsky was disappointed. Hutch gave no indication that he even noticed the disappearance of the kindling that used to be his chair. He’d simply asked, “You want to go to Maggiano’s for dinner?”

“Yeah, sure,” Starsky answered, pretending to read the latest issue of Explore the Empire.

Starsky drove them to Maggiano’s, but instead of going into the restaurant, Hutch walked to the secondhand furniture store next door. “C’mon, Starsk,” he said with more warmth in his voice since the chair incident began.

“Aw, Hutch!” Starsky whined, aware that he was whining and hating himself for doing it. “You know I can’t stand the smell of these junky old stores you haunt. Cut me a break. Let’s go eat.”

“Second Chances will be closed by the time we’ve finished eating,” Hutch answered. “You can suck it up long enough to help me find a new kitchen chair.”

Huh.

He never acquiesced verbally, but Starsky stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and slouched into the store. It turned out to be all-wood furniture, used for-sure, but the place smelled nice – like lemon polish. Hanging against the back wall must have been fifty different ladderback chairs.

“Do we want to try to find one that comes close to matching the broken one?” Hutch asked.

“Um.” Starsky started to speak, then he shut his mouth and considered for a moment. “No. Let’s get something completely different, like a different color, to remind me. . . . ” Starsky trailed off.

“Okay,” Hutch said. “Something different.”

In less than ten minutes, they’d selected a chair that fit in with Hutch’s motley collection of mismatched chairs but wasn’t so far out of style from the others that it would scream at a casual visitor from across the room. At some point it had been painted a pale blue that kind of reminded Starsky of his partner’s eyes. Starsky paid the fifteen in cash at the till and Hutch carried his new chair out to the Torino, gingerly putting it in the backseat, which took some maneuvering to get it over the passenger seat, even folded down as tightly as it would go.

Hutch bought dinner and didn’t bitch once about the cost.

When they got home, Starsky lugged the chair up the stairs and installed it in the empty space left by the one he’d murdered. The blowjob Hutch gave him that night was purely magical (and, Starsky suspected, intended to reinforce his good behavior; fuck, for a blowjob like that one, he’d buy Hutch a hundred chairs.)

Starsky forced his mind back to the present situation, as troubling as it was, and surveyed the recent damage. It was minimal this time. He’d only broken that ugly statue.

He took off his jacket and gun and draped them over the couch. Righted the coffee table and put it back in its place. Got the broom and dustpan from the kitchen and swept up the plaster. Then he picked up the gargoyle pieces – heads, horns, and bodies – and dumped them in the trash can.

“Good riddance,” he said quietly.

He unwrapped the newly purchased statue – curly haired Cupid kissing another cherub topped with locks that flowed just like Hutch’s – and placed it on the coffee table. Then he looked up, expecting to see Hutch standing behind the couch, close to Cicero, but not too close, watching him with warm eyes. But the only thing Starsky saw was the cactus. And he began to get worried. Had Hutch taken off?

His partner clearly wasn’t in the living room or kitchen. A quick glance in the bedroom showed nothing but the unmade bed that Starsky had slept in last night. He walked into the greenhouse, wishing he would find Hutch watering his plants. No go. There was just one room left. . . .

Starsky found him in the bathroom.

Hutch was sitting on the tile floor, fully dressed, tears leaking slowly from his eyes, as if each one was wrought from a piece of his soul. So many tears that his shirt was nearly soaked to the waist. Starsky was shocked and stumped at the same time. Make-up gift forgotten, he didn’t know what to do with a crying Hutch. It was just . . . impossible. This strong man, allowing these emotions to exist, much less be expressed. Starsky knelt in front of his partner.

“Hutch.” It was the only word he could choke out.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
11:00 a.m., Same Day

I’ve barely put my dick away when it comes to me: the bathroom is really dark. Much darker than I’m used to, especially for mid-morning on a bright sunny day. It’s then I notice the sink isn’t where it should be – it’s been moved to the right of the toilet, displacing the bathtub, which is completely missing. To the right of this sink should be a huge window. Instead, the window is a mere slit, maybe eight inches wide, made of heavy glass blocks that extend to the ceiling. To the left of the toilet are my shelves of washcloths, towels, deodorant, the usual bathroom stuff. I turn around and see a cedarwood wall enclosing the back of the bathroom, a narrow entry door opposite the sink.

What the hell?

I push open the door to this mystery room in my johnny, expecting anything at this point: a jacuzzi, a giant gun safe, a sex dungeon, a dead body. I find a sauna. It’s in this moment my legs grow watery. I place my back against the glass blocks and slide to the floor.

Time. It’s funny. Like memories. It can fade and disappear. Just like my bathtub. I must have lost some time, sitting on the floor of the shitter, because the next thing I see is Starsky, fully clothed, kneeling in front of me. The sun has moved, changing the angle of the shadows in this foreign room that most definitely is not my bathroom. And no matter what Starsky ultimately says, nothing will convince me I’m not losing my mind.

Starsky’s face is pasty, marled by the waves from the glass blocks distorting the sun’s rays. He looks sick, just like how I feel. It’s only then I realize I’m crying. Fat, greasy tears creeping down my face and neck. My shirt is soaked. How long have I been down here? Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. It’s then the cat that’s got Starsky’s tongue lets go.

“Hutch,” he says hoarsely. Again, nothing else. Just my name.

“I’m done,” I tell him. “Might as well get the rubber room ready. I can’t even find my shower.” I turn away from him, ashamed to let him see me so low. So damaged.

There’s a rustling, and I think Starsky’s getting up to go. Maybe to make a phone call to the Cabrillo Mental Institution. Instead, he must have been winding up, because I’m backhanded with such force, I’m knocked halfway into the cold sauna. Next thing, Starsky is looming over me.

“Get up,” he roars. “Man up!” He punctuates his demand with a kick to the front of my thigh.

I’m up and off the floor in a flash. Feeling no pain, I leap forward in the small space, tackling him. My arms clench his waist, and I propel us into the sink, which promptly pulls free from the wall, collapsing under our combined weight. The sink, Starsky, and I crash to the floor, leaving Starsky trapped beneath me, thrashing, trying to gain the upper hand, but I’m straddling his hips and have him pinned. With my left hand I grab his throat, and with my right I punch him, connecting with his jaw. Blood begins to trickle from the corner of his mouth, sliming his bared teeth. I pull back for another go, then Starsky relaxes beneath me.

I can feel his heartbeat under my thumb. See his chest heave with exertion. But Starsky isn’t fighting back. I lower my arm.

A contorted pipe still connected to the sink chooses that moment to give up the ghost and spray water over both of us.

“You had enough?” Starsky asks, the artificial rain washing away the blood on his face. “Or you wanna bust the toilet, too?”

I shake my head. I’ve done enough damage.

Before I get up, I reach over Starsky’s shoulder and spin the cutoff valve below the cracked pipe, which puts a stop to the impromptu rainfall. Guess I found the shower after all. Then I scrabble to get up without further hurting Starsky. Once standing, I put out my hand, offering to help my partner up. He takes it, and a part of me expects him to come up swinging and immediately clean my clock. Why? Even as he lay passively beneath me, there was a sense of complete control on Starsky’s part, of menace held in check. I hadn’t beaten him – at least, not yet. Instead, he embraces me with another one of those so-tight-I-can-barely-breathe hugs. This time, there’s no hesitation on my part returning it.

Too soon, Starsky’s grip slackens, and the gentle pat that heralds the end of an embrace taps my shoulder blade. I take a step back, once again pressed into the glass blocks, while Starsky gingerly maneuvers the mess on the floor. He reaches towards me, grabs my shoulder, and gently spins me around to face the mirror. We’re standing so close as to be in frame together, like a portrait.

“Now you don’t have to worry about anybody looking at your eye,” Starsky says, just a hint of whimsy in his voice. “They’ll be too busy looking at your cheek.”

He’s right. My blackeye is already fading to green, with a tint of yellow on the edges. But my cheek! Scarlet red, from ear to chin, and already swelling. Then I look at Starsky’s reflection. His bottom lip has a tiny split that’s still oozing blood. And it looks like his left cheek is going to bruise, maybe not as bad as mine, but bad enough.

“Starsk, I-I—”

“Shh,” he says, laying a finger on my lips. “It’ll give all the jealous assholes at the station something to gossip about. Do we give a damn what anybody says about us?”

“Maybe Dobey,” I answer once he removes his finger.

“You leave Dobey to me,” Starsky says. “I know just what to say to him.”

I open my mouth again, to try to apologize, but Starsky cuts me off at the pass.

“I was . . . wrong . . . earlier. Pushing you away. You know? When you asked for help.” The words come slowly, and Starsky doesn’t say them to my face, but rather holds my gaze in the mirror. It’s like the words are being wrung from him. Tortured even. This is a side of Starsky I’ve never seen. No one likes to admit they’re wrong, and I’m not sure he was wrong. I might have done the same thing in his shoes. But I can tell this – apology? – is hard for Starsky.

“I need you to know that I’m gonna be here for you. Together we can beat this thing with your memory. We got the better part of six days to tune you up and get you ready to go back to work, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, feeling as if a huge stone has been rolled off my chest. Starsky’s right. Together, we can beat anything.

“If something seems weird or ain’t right, if we’re alone, just tell me.”

I nod, my reflection mimicking me in the mirror.

“If we’re in public,” he continues, “just follow my lead, and we’ll talk about it later and figure it out. Together.”

“Are you certain this is the best plan?” I ask, wanting him to be sure. I know far better than Starsky does, at this point, how screwed up I am. “Maybe I really should check into a place like Cabrillo, get some therapy. . . ”

Starsky’s face is puzzled. “What’s Cabrillo?”

“A mental hospital,” I say.

Starsky turns away from the mirror and delicately takes my jaw in his hand, turning me to face him. “There are no mental hospitals in the Empire, Hutch. Mental defectives are a burden on society. They’re quietly put down, usually by their families. The only Cabrillo I know is a low-cost crematorium for plebes who can’t afford a fancy funeral.”

“Empire?” I echo, a horrible light illuminating my consciousness.

“The Roman Empire,” Starsky answers. “I’m guessing by the look on your face that you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

For a moment, I’m too shocked to say anything, then I answer cautiously. “No. I know the Roman Empire. It fell completely around fifteen hundred years ago, give or take a few decades.”

For a moment, something that might be despair clouds Starsky’s features. Then his face hardens. “Okay. Once we’re done getting cleaned up, that’ll be where we start. I ain’t a professor, but I like to read about history. I’ve got to run some errands later, so one of them will be stopping by my place to pick up a few books. I won’t be back ’til late, but we’ll talk and get a plan together. Sound good?”

What choice do I have? I nod acquiescence.

“All right. Let’s get you out of these clothes and I’ll show you why you don’t have a shower.”

My Henley is buttoned to the neck. Starsky’s fumbling a bit because the wetness makes it harder to slip the buttons through their holes.

“Can’t you just tell me?” I ask.

“Only poor people have showers. Real Romans use the thermae, also called. . .?” Starsky is looking expectantly at me.

“The sauna?” I answer.

“Perfecto.”

“I know how to use a sauna, Starsk,” I prevaricate as he lifts my shirt and pulls it over my head before reaching for my belt buckle.

“Do you know how to use a strigil?”

I don’t even know what one is. “Um. No.”

“No time like the present to learn how to get clean the modern way,” Starsky says, pulling down my zipper.

“I don’t need you to undress me like a little kid,” I protest, turning sideways.

“Have it your way,” he says. From the corner of my eye, I watch him grab the hem of his blue t-shirt and pull it over his head to reveal a torso I’ve seen a thousand times in the showers at the station and for four months in my bed. Lean hips. Washboard stomach. A wealth of black curls in stark contrast to my nearly hairless chest. Starsky’s a little shorter than me, but no doubt about it – he’s built. Lots of lean muscle, as any perp who’s taken a hit from him will tell you. With no more care than if we were in the locker room at work, Starsky toes off his sneakers and efficiently wriggles out of his wet jeans. He pushes past me, my pants at half-mast, to pass through the narrow door into the sauna.

“I’ll get everything fired up,” he volunteers.

I huff an affirmative and finish peeling wet corduroys off my calves. I sit on the john to take off my socks, still feeling too out of sorts to trust hopping around on one foot like a stork. Once more, I stand and look at myself in the mirror, wondering how I came to this state of being. I have no answers but one: trust my partner to get us through the crazy nightmare that’s currently my life. It’s then I realize I haven’t brushed my teeth in at least two days, and I take care of that bit of business. I note there are two toothbrushes in the cup – one yellow (mine) and one red. It doesn’t take much detecting to guess the red one is Starsky’s.

I enter the sauna and see Starsky fiddling with a spigot, low to the floor, barely high enough to clear the wooden bucket that sits beneath it. It’s full of water. A couple of feet above the bucket is a shelf holding half a dozen glass bottles in varying sizes and colors, along with some vaguely medical-looking metal instruments hung on pegs.

“Have a seat, ‘Master’ Hutchinson,” Starsky says archly, “as this will be the one and only time you’ll get the full Starsky bath treatment free of charge. There are folks from Coney Island to the Bahamas who would give their right tit to experience anew the ‘Starsky special.’”

“Look,” I say nervously, already starting to sweat and more than a little embarrassed by being trapped in a small room gradually growing hotter and more humid by the minute with my way-too-enthusiastic partner. My former lover. “I just need the basics – wash my hair and scrub everything else.”

“No problem,” Starsky says, turning to the shelf of bottles. “Basic it is.”

Before I avert my eyes, I can’t help but observe that Starsky’s ass is as tan as the rest of his body. That’s new. He rummages through the bottles, eyeing each one until he finds the one he wants. He turns and tosses the bottle to me. I barely have the presence of mind to catch it. My fingers trace the raised letters on the clear glass: Herbal Essence Saponins. “What’s this?”

I watch Starsky take a deep breath, as if steadying himself. “It’s saponi. You can wash everything from your hair to your ass with it.”

Okay. It’s shampoo. Only it’s a lot thinner than shampoo, practically all water. But I pour some on my steam-slicked hair and it lathers up nicely. It smells good, too. Herby without being flowery. Nice. I see that Starsky has selected a blue bottle of saponi for himself and has lathered up his whole body in addition to his hair. I catch a light whiff of herbs and something darker – amber? Then I turn my back to him and do the same: arms, pits, chest, landing gear, butt, legs, feet. I’ve just stood up, covered in foam, when a bucket of ice-cold water pours over me. I gasp at the temperature difference.

“What the hell was that for?” I grouse, wiping water from my eyes.

“Your place is too small for a frigidarium, so cold water is the next best thing,” Starsky says, refilling the bucket. Once it’s full, he pours the bucket over his own head. He sheds most of the water with a vigorous shake, almost like a dog after a bath. Then his hand snakes out and grabs my wrist. He pulls me down to sit on the bench that spans the entire back wall.

“Here, smell this,” Starsky says, placing a green glass bottle near my nose.

“Hmmm, sandalwood,” I say. “Smells like you.”

“More accurate to say I smell like it,” he shoots back. “This is what I use to get clean – olive oil and sandalwood. You, my strange partner, for whatever reason, prefer this stuff. It’s as blond as you.” Starsky holds the clear bottle of pale liquid gold close enough for me to read the ingredients list etched into the glass: grape seed oil, sweet almond oil, sunflower seed oil, musk. “You’d smell like a girl, if you didn’t drown yourself in Old Spice aftershave.”

“Old Spice,” I exclaim. “I know Old Spice!”

“Thank the Gods for small favors,” Starsky mutters as he sets the bottle next to me on the bench. He turns back to the shelf, only this time he returns with one of those strange metal tools I’d noted earlier. He holds it out to me and I take it. The thing is made of brass and roughly a foot long with a serious curve just past the hollow handle. The bladed edges are smooth and dull, with the middle part between the edges mildly indented, sort of like an exceptionally long soup spoon. “This is a strigil, also called a scraper. You wanna guess what you do with it?”

I glance down at the bottle of oil next to my thigh. “Um, apply the oil and scrape it off?”

“Smart boy! Prune juice for everybody!” Starsky says it in a mocking tone, but something about his face takes the sting out of it. Like he’s . . . relieved . . . that I know something he takes for granted. It’s then I mentally buckle down. With Starsky’s help, I really can muddle through until my memories return or, if they don’t, get the lay of what feels like a very strange land.

Without further ado, he picks up the bottle and pours the golden oil into his cupped palm. “Now lay face down so I can get to work.”

I feel a generous application of the oil being applied between my shoulder blades. Starsky’s hands, harder than I remember them being, dip into the oil and spread it around. Soon his fingers dig into the meat of my shoulders. The muscles are tight – no surprise there – but he takes his time warming up the skin and muscles beneath. It isn’t long before the tension in my shoulders is banished. He continues to rub in the fragrant oil until he hits the right spot in my neck.

“That’s good,” I groan. “Right there, Starsk.” I close my eyes.

Starsky “mmmmms” a sound that I interpret as okay. He works my neck and then my arms, for what feels like forever, before moving down my back, giving it the same treatment of almost-pain that transforms to almost-pleasure. Eventually, I melt into the bench. It’s only then that Starsky takes the strigil, and passes it down my left arm, smoothly removing oil, loose skin, and every bit of tension that dared to linger. His ministrations leave me feeling renewed, my body invigorated and relaxed at the same time. He has to lift my right arm, it being so close to the sauna’s backwall, before he can smoothly glide the blade from shoulder to fingertip.

Without a word, Starsky moves on to my back, scraping and sliding, back and forth, efficient and, yes, I can admit it to myself, sensual at the same time. He finishes with my back, and I hear him put down the strigil and take up the oil bottle again. This time it feels like he’s pouring the liquid right onto the base of my spine. His hands return. Drag the oil down both globes of my ass, his touch confident, firm . . . comforting? There’s nothing overtly sexual in his touch, but I feel my cock stirring nevertheless, nudging the cedarwood planks beneath me. I shift uncomfortably.

“You okay?” he asks softly.

“Yeah. Keep going.”

Starsky oils my legs and feet. Massages my heels. I didn’t know that feet could feel so good. “Just like the song, you’ve got ‘magic hands,’ Starsk. Maybe you should have been a professional masseur instead of a cop.”

“Only for you, Hutch,” Starsky murmurs.

I could easily fall asleep in this warm cocoon, but Starsky’s hands cajole me to flip over, then to sit up.

“This next part is easier if you’re sitting, or even standing,” Starsky says.

“I can stand,” I say hazily, but Starsky cuts me off.

“Stay seated, blintz,” he says. “You’ve had a rough couple of days.”

My cock is behaving now, but I’m a little nervous as Starsky applies more of the oil to his hands and begins to dig into my pectorals. The muscles there are tighter than I first imagined, and his fingers hurt, but it’s the kind of pain that you know is doing some good. Then he scrapes away that oil, as skillful with a strigil as he is with his gun. I feel restored. He works his way down my chest and belly, laving my skin with the light, almond-scented oil, working the strigil over me, leaving a wake of deep clean unlike anything I’ve experienced before. And all the time the steam is building, filling the small room, relaxing me completely.

“That’s right. Just relax,” Starsky says, as if he can read my mind. “Let the heat open your pores. Push out the stress and the poisons of the day.”

“Yeah,” I purr, barely able to speak.

My chin hits my chest.

I’m on the verge of sleep.

The small, sensible side of my brain asks me, Is it a good idea to fall asleep in a sauna? But the other half of my brain can’t be bothered answering. Why? Because Starsky has my back.

Even half asleep I can feel the strong hands working the oil into my shins, the dull blade wiping everything away. Feel my partner work my thighs, stroking the long muscles, just this side of painful, but nevertheless feeling oh-so-good. Only then does his touch gradually change to something else. I feel his lips briefly brush the bruise that’s forming on my thigh, the spot where he kicked me. I expect him to apologize, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just digs in deeper with his thumbs, releasing the knot inside the muscle I didn’t even know was there. “That’ll be an improvement,” he says. “It’ll heal faster now.”

Starsky’s removing the last of the oil when I finally open my eyes. He’s kneeling on the tile floor, his body between my spread legs. His eyes are bright, glittering in the warm atmosphere of the sauna, even through the shroud of steam. The moisture has clotted his lashes into points, framing those compelling eyes. He’s looking at me, expectantly. There’s part of me that flashes back to grade school; the teacher has called my name, but I’d been daydreaming. I want to answer her silent question, but I can’t. She made me wait a torturous amount of time. But Starsky doesn’t.

Resting limply on the bench is my right hand. He reaches for it with his left. Laces our fingers together.

Pulls my hand to rest in his curls. Finger still entwined, he guides my hand, pushing his head towards my cock, which is no longer curled sleepily against my thigh but has begun to fill in expectation. I’m only half-hard when Starsky’s lips touch the tip. Still holding my hands on station, he nuzzles me. His cheeks look smooth, but it’s obvious he hasn’t shaved since yesterday, as he deliberately scrapes his beard stubble up one side of my now-full erection and down the other. It doesn’t hurt, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel as nice as his lips.

Gently, I use my hand to guide his head, positioning his mouth over the tip of my cock. He untwines his fingers before his right hand grabs my left. There’s no mistaking his message. He brings his other hand to his head, silently encouraging me to sink my fingers into his dark mane and hold on.

There’s no resistance when I pull Starsky down, onto my cock. His lips part and I’m halfway in. His mouth is warm and knowing. His tongue circles the head, then the sharp tip dips into my slit before he circles the head again and again. I’m gasping in the warm, wet air. I want to tell him how good this feels but I’m voiceless, my heart blocking my throat. Instead, I caress his scalp, combing my fingers through his wet curls, encouraging him wordlessly to continue, to take all of me in.

I’m not so far gone that I don’t realize this is a big change for us. All we’d done in the past was jerk each other off. Again, that sensible side of me asks, Is this a good idea? Shouldn’t you have talked about this first?

I slam the door on that part of my brain, as welcome as an encyclopedia salesman.

Starsky starts to go to town on my cock, sucking it hard, but taking it no deeper. This goes on seemingly forever, that skilled tongue, the blissful suction, but surely it’s just for a few minutes – just feels so damned good that I want it to go on forever. Then his hand covers both of mine. It rests there a moment before he pushes, hard, and my cock hits the back of his throat, causing him to gag. His throat closes over the head, hard and tight, and I want to thrust deeper, make him take more, but instead I pull him back, completely off me.

I look down at Starsky and he looks up at me, well, angry. This is not the face of someone who’s having a good time. I let go of him.

“I-I’m sorry, Starsk,” I begin, but my partner wordlessly tells me in no uncertain terms what he wants. He grabs my wrists and forces my hands to frame his skull, my fingers to dig into his hair.

“Make me,” Starsky whispers, his voice husky and full of want.

He doesn’t have to tell me twice.

My fingers dig deep. His curls, even wet from the steam, are rich and full, and my fingers disappear in their depths. Without further caution, I pull Starsky back down to my cock. At first, he doesn’t open his lips. Then I remember the husky “make me.” With my left hand, I dig tight into his hair; I use my right to explore his face, tracking the line of his jaw until my fingers find his mouth. I thrust my index finger in, slide it along his teeth, until it reaches the naked gum in the back. I force my finger into this vulnerable space, and Starsky’s mouth widens.

I leave it there as I pull Starsky towards my cock. I give him a minute to prove he’s going to be good and keep his mouth open, and he looks at me with something that might be admiration. Then he smiles around my erection and that smile meets his eyes – full of mischief. He drops his gaze and returns to the business of pleasuring me. He doesn’t close his mouth. Instead, he grazes me with his teeth. Not enough to hurt, just enough to threaten. I tug his hair in warning, which is met with a sound that’s part laugh, part growl. The reverberations around my rock-hard flesh are amazing. My memory may be spotty, but I know I’ve never felt anything this intense. This incredible.

And I want to feel it again.

“That’s good, partner,” I say, using both hands now to hold Starsky’s head in place. I push him down and feel my cock slide deep into his throat. This time the sound he makes is a moan. I hold him there, just a moment, knowing he can’t breathe, but unable to let go of the vibratory bliss pleasuring me. Then I pull him up but not entirely off my rod. Again, there’s just a hint of teeth.

“You gonna be good and put those fangs away?” I ask. My eyes drink in the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life: my strong, brave partner kneeling at my feet, my cock stuffing his face as he mouths “make me” again.

He wants me to take charge.

The thought thrills me, sets a fire deep in my belly, makes the sauna feel like a fridge by comparison.

Tightening my grip on his hair, I slide a second finger into his mouth. It’s a tight fit, but with the presence of both fingers jammed into that slick, smooth place behind his teeth, Starsky’s jaw is effectively jacked open. His beautiful eyes close – in contentment? I hope so. Or something deeper that I don’t have the presence of mind to contemplate while my cock is filling Starsky’s mouth.

It’s now that I begin to carefully push down on his head. The pressure of my grip is unwavering. The pleasure of my dick sliding deep into my partner’s throat. His struggle to take it all. The reflexive gag that grips the head and rings my bell every time, sending waves of desire throughout my body.

Soon, Starsky’s taking me down to the root, and I’m holding him there for a count of three-five-ten as his tight throat struggles to reject my cock, the sensation a gripping ring of muscle dancing underneath the head, teasing and pleasing that sensitive wrinkle of flesh just below my flange.

I let him up. Hear the whooping gasp for breath, then immediately push him back down. I’ve found my rhythm. I’m in my groove, so deep in my partner’s throat. Then my rod swells that last tiny bit, and I know I’m gonna come. I pull my fingers from his mouth, slide that hand down to his throat so I can feel him take me all the way in.

“So good,” I sigh, my eyes starting to close.

But they pop open when I feel something I don’t expect. Starsky’s hands have been cinching my waist this whole time but now they drop, the fingertips tracing my thighs, down the sides of my calves. Then they do something strange. Starsky carefully places his arms behind his back, his wrists crossed at the base of his spine, like he’s handcuffed. Each muscle stands out on his arms, as if he were truly struggling to escape. But his wrists never part. He’s completely suborned.

Then I’m coming. Shooting my jizz into my partner. My lover. Putting my mark on him in a place where it can never be washed off. For a moment, I own Starsky . . . I’ve made him mine.

And I like it.

David Michahèl Starsky
12:15 p.m., Same Day

Hutch was as limp as a noodle, and not just in the groin, by the time Starsky dumped a second bucket of water over him, and one more over himself for good measure. He’d scrape himself down later because his main priority was to get Hutch up and out of the sauna. Starsky only had a couple of hours before he had to leave, and he wanted to get both of them fed and, hopefully, into bed – at least for a little while.

Starsky had a lot to think about.

He didn’t bother to gather up Hutch’s crappy old mustard-colored robe, but he did fetch his slippers; there was just too much mess on the bathroom floor, and he didn’t want his partner to cut his feet on a stray chip of porcelain. “I’ve never seen him happy drunk,” Starsky thought. That’s what Hutch reminded him of right now. Even half asleep, there was a loopy grin on his face, like he’d won the lottery.

“C’mon, buddy-boy. Up and at ’em,” Starsky said, purposely jovial. He took most of Hutch’s weight, after he’d slung his partner’s arm over his shoulder, and guided him from the sauna and through the wreckage of the bathroom.

“Gotta call the plumber,” Hutch said, with a Gods-be-damned giggle in his voice.

“We’ll call tomorrow, okay?”

“Wha’ever you say, Starsk.”

“You’d think he really was liquored up,” Starsky thought. “Despite the fact I’ve rarely seen him blotto.” His partner was normally the ice man. Cool. Collected. Always had his wits about him. Hutch would be nursing a beer while everyone else was downing shots. And that was good; the Empire wasn’t safe for sloppy drunks.

Dobey always said they ran hot and cold. Everyone knew who was the hot one of the pair. And it wasn’t Starsky’s partner. The naked weight of this warm and fuzzy Hutch was confusing and comforting at the same time. This was a side of Hutch he’d never seen. And if he were truthful with himself, which was his stock-in-trade, Starsky liked this side.

Once they cleared the bathroom door, Starsky wrapped his free arm around Hutch’s waist to better steer him through the living room, past the couch and chair, around the coffee table, and through to the bedroom – all while being careful to avoid the damned cactus at the far end of the couch.

As soon as they reached the edge of the mattress, Starsky let go and his partner tumbled sideways into the bed, laughing all the way down. Hutch rolled over and made the “gimme” hands, tempting Starsky to join him. There was a part of him that wanted to leap into bed, open the nightstand drawer, lube up his cock, and put the boots to his partner. But as far as he could tell, Hutch hadn’t eaten since this whole weird incident began nearly three days ago.

He had to take care of business.

“Take a little nap, Blondie,” Starsky said kindly, not completely immune to the frown that immediately painted Hutch’s face when he refused to come to bed with him. “I’m gonna order us a pizza, maybe two. I’m starving. How ’bout you?”

It was as though he’d asked a hard math question, given the knitted brows. But just then Hutch’s stomach gurgled, telling anyone who would listen that it, at least, would appreciate some food. “Sounds like I’m out-voted,” Hutch mumbled. Then he rolled onto his side and curled up like a little kid, slippered feet still hanging off the edge of the mattress. He was out cold.

Starsky grabbed the afghan from the couch, hissed an “ouch” when Cicero nipped him, and slung the cover over his partner’s naked body, more to stave off temptation than to keep him warm on an already warm day.

He pulled a pair of cutoffs and a t-shirt from his drawer in the dresser before calling Zaza’s Trattoria and ordering two pizzas: a large New York pepperoni for him and a large deep-dish garden vegetable for Hutch. The pies would take the better part of an hour to be delivered. He had time to sit and think.

Hutch was more broken than Starsky first thought. He felt his throat tighten at the realization. Nightmare images of Hutch being taken away flooded his consciousness. There was a part of him that wanted to take out his service pistol and off them both. Clean. Neat. Together. But he’d made a promise – another vow, really – that he would always be there for Hutch and, together, they’d beat this . . . thing.

There was something almost eerie about their situation. Unnatural. How could Hutch remember their cases but not remember there was an Empire?

David Michahēl Starsky knew himself to be a supremely confident man. When he put his hand to something, it always worked out in the end. But this time, maybe for the first time in his life, he was genuinely scared. Not for himself, but for his partner.

He put Hutch, full of veggie pizza, back in bed and turned on the radio for company. “Try to stay awake, Blondie,” Starsky said sternly. “But if you do fall asleep, don’t worry. If I’m gonna be longer than two hours, I’ll call to check on you. And you better pick up the fucking phone, ’cause I’ll tan your ass when I get back if you don’t.”

Hutch gave his partner a mock salute, but Starsky could see his eyelids were already drooping. To make sure he had Hutch’s full attention, he bent over and gave his left nipple a harsh twist.

“Ow!” Hutch protested, suddenly more awake, pulling the covers up to his neck. “What was that for?”

“I’m not kidding,” Starsky reiterated darkly. “Answer the phone when I call or else.”

“Yeah-yeah-yeah,” Hutch said, rolling over and putting his back to his partner. Starsky smiled. He’d made his point. His little reminder would be enough to encourage Hutch to pick up the phone, now that he knew the consequences were real if he didn’t.

David Michahèl Starsky
3:25 a.m., Same Day

After giving Hutch a little wake-up call, which his partner answered with alacrity, Starsky left his own apartment with a stack of history books he’d wanted to get for Hutch. They were sitting on the front seat of his Torino, holding Hutch’s place, while he entered police headquarters to pick up as many of their case files as he could bribe Charlie Collins into getting for him. Charlie was on their monthly “gambling” list – a pretense for the bribe Starsky and Hutch paid him to be Johnny-on-the-stick when they need case files fast. The problem was that he and Hutch weren’t the only ones on that list. Every once and a while, they had to remind Charlie that there were other reasons why he wanted to keep them happy. Nothing too rough, just a little menace amongst friends.

“Two years? Charlie protested, dropping the bottle of Bactine he’d been spraying on his forearm. “You need two years of your case files?” Starsky gave him his best murder face, which was not a pretend one but his real one. “Okay, okay,” Charlie said, picking up a tissue and daubing at an angry mark on his arm. “But for something this big, you owe me one.”

“Okay,” Starsky said. “I don’t mind owing you one, Charlie. My credit’s good with you.”

“I hope you brought a dump truck,” Charlie answered huffily.

“Bag ’em up by month, so’s I don’t get ’em out of order,” Starsky instructed. “And I’ll come back in a couple of hours with some laundry bags to haul ’em out.”

“Good disguise,” Charlie praised, even if it sounded grudging. “Everybody who knows you knows you got more laundry in your locker than you got at home.”

“Ha-ha,” Starsky mock laughed, knowing it was true. “Just get me the files and keep your mouth shut about ’em.”

“I know the drill,” Charlie muttered, as he fumbled with a Band-Aid.

“How’d you fuck up your arm, Charlie?” Starsky asked casually. It was a strange place for road rash, which you would expect on your hands and elbows if you fell – not on your inner forearm.

“Ah, some mandatory medical thing here at the station,” Charlie grumbled, examining his handiwork. “Be glad you weren’t here. It hurt like a bitch, and just when I thought it was healing up good, the wool of my uniform sleeve got it all aggravated.”

“Did everyone who was here get it?” Starsky asked.

“Yup. And to add insult to injury, the brass cut the line and so did the detectives. I had to work late to pay back the time spent waiting for my little ‘procedure.’”

“You’re right,” Starsky answered thoughtfully. “I am glad I wasn’t here.”

His next stop was the bank. He didn’t need to withdraw money to pay off Dr. Franklin – he’d already set that aside. What he did need was to start making small deposits of some of his wet work fee so that he’d have extra cash in his account. A cop’s pay didn’t stretch too far, and some things you just had to pay for legitimately, using a check. He deposited five hundred aureus and asked the teller for an envelope, which he would put Franklin’s payoff in. That left four thousand denarii to stash in his rainy-day fund for things like paying off a kidnapper or bribing an official to make something go away fast. He had the equivalent of half a talent of gold saved up. You just never knew when the black rain was going fall, or Jupiter Thunderer would strike.

Now he parked in The Pits’ alley, intending to use the “employees only” door so he could sneak up the back stairs and have a private chat with Sweet Alice. Which was exactly what he was doing when Huggy came around the corner and said, “Ain’t no use going up. She just hooked herself a john. Gonna be thirty minutes. You hungry? Want a beer? Wanna play a game of pool? Want to get laid while you wait?”

Leave it to Huggy, proprietor par-supreme, to offer him everything on the menu.

“If you’re not too busy, I wouldn’t mind buying you a beer and having a chat in your most private booth,” Starsky answered.

“You know what Willie Nelson says,” Huggy articulated, heading for the pass-through door into the bar. “‘If you got the money, honey, I’ve got the time.’”

“Didn’t know you were a country music fan, Hug,” Starsky said, following him.

“I’m a rentin’ ladies fan,” Huggy clarified, flashing two fingers at Anita behind the bar as he passed by. She would bring their beers, Starsky knew, and expect him to pay on delivery. “And it was number one on the charts last year or so, so guess what’s still on my jukebox?”

Huggy picked a corner booth, as far away from the pool table, pinball machine, and door as you could possibly get. With a dapper movement of his wrist, Huggy’s lean hand indicated Starsky should take the bench seat opposite him. Fine with Starsky. His back was to the wall and he could see the whole joint.

“Can guess what you wanna to talk about,” Huggy preambled.

“Yeah?” Starsky asked coolly, taking the beers from Anita and tossing two bronze coins on her tray, waving her off before she made change. “Anita’s a good slave,” he thought, half-absent-mindedly, watching her walk away and appreciating her tush, even if he had no interest in banging it. She was a bit mouthy, in his opinion, but a woman had to be a bit mouthy to work in a place like The Pits. Besides beer and bar food, it was known for prostitution, friends and family drug deals – little stuff, just some weed, or a few pills, uppers mostly, nothing too heavy, or he and Hutch couldn’t turn a blind eye – and, best of all, information, hot off the street. If Huggy didn’t know it, or couldn’t find out, no one could.

“You wanna know what I know about Hutch while you been gone,” Huggy said with confidence.

Starsky shrugged. “What’s to know?”

“I know that last Sunday night he showed up at closin’ time and rented Sweet Alice ’til dawn,” Huggy revealed before taking a sip of his beer.

Again, Starsky shrugged. Hutch liked Sweet Alice. Had tried to get her legitimate work several times. Get her away from the life. If he were here while she was working, sometimes he’d pay her just to sit with him. But Starsky could’ve told him (in fact, had told him) that people don’t change. If Hutch wanted to screw Sweet Alice occasionally to show her sex could be different with the right guy, it didn’t bother Starsky. After he’d killed somebody, either in the line of duty or as part of his wet work, Starsky liked to have a woman. What he and Hutch shared was solid, nothing that could be threatened by the occasional good-time girl.

“So what?” he asked Huggy dispassionately.

“Well, a certain Sweet Alice keeps asking me if I’ve seen Starsky, do I know when he’s coming over, shit like that.”

“Can’t say I blame her after hanging with that big galoot I call my partner. She’s finally ready to enter the major leagues,” Starsky said easily, but all his senses where heightened. Sweet Alice was sweet to every man she met, even the monsters. But she’d never shown a lick of sexual interest in him. Starsky started to get up, but Huggy put his spectator-clad foot against the back of Starsky’s side of the booth, his leg a living tollgate.

“Not so fast, my friend,” Huggy said gently. “I got somethin’ juicy that I know you want to hear, and my customer still has fifteen minutes on the meter.”

For just a moment, Starsky considered driving his elbow into Huggy’s leg with every intention of doing his best to break it. He did not like anyone impeding his way, even his paramount informant and almost-but-not-quite-friend. Instead, he shoved Huggy’s foot off the bench and gave him his best “this better be good” face.

“A guy we all know by the name of Fireball was picked up by a rookie patrolman for playing invisible baseball,” Huggy said. “Truth be told, he probably just wanted to shakedown the ol’ dude, and Fireball’d forgot his wallet. Rookie got mad and trumped-up a public intoxication charge and took Fireball in.”

Starsky knew Fireball. Geezer on a pension. A little soft in the head, but no real bother to anyone. Just liked to talk baseball. And if he didn’t have anyone to talk to, he’d play the game by himself, calling out to the rest of the players like they were there. He and Hutch sometimes got a good tip from him but otherwise left him alone. “Bad day for Fireball.”

“Well, when the rookie called for a doughnut-mobile to deliver Fireball to the jail, it seems he saw Hutch out back on the loading dock bein’ hustled into a paddy wagon. And Hutch didn’t look so happy about it, accordin’ to Fireball. In fact—” Huggy added a dramatic pause. “—Hutch looked like he was, and I quote, ‘on his way to his own funeral.’”

“It had to be IA taking Hutch somewhere,” Starsky intuited. “No one else would have jurisdiction.” Sometimes, when IA couldn’t put together a case on a dirty cop because his fellow cops wouldn’t cross the blue line, fuckers like Simonetti and Dryden would get frustrated and pick a suspect up, beat the shit out of him, maybe throw in a little torture, and dump him naked on the side of the road to find his way home, hopefully a little sadder and a little wiser. A few cops on the take saw the light after one such incident. Most just chalked it up to the cost of doing business and were more careful the next time. But Starsky and Hutch weren’t on the take, so what could IA possibly want with him?

“I don’t know,” Starsky answered himself, his ire rising. “But I’m gonna find out.”

“I figure that lil’ tidbit is worth sixty,” Huggy announced. “And looks like Alice’s latest hookup has finished his business.” He shrugged in the general direction of the pass-through door. A tubby, balding, middle-aged man was tucking his lumberjack shirt into his pants. “The meter is runnin’ on Alice,” Huggy said. “She’s my best earner. That’s why I let her live upstairs. But if you go beatin’ info out of my best ho, you can damned well expect to get a bill for twenty denarii per hour for every hour she can’t work. In fact, make that sixty an even hundred before you go upstairs. A little reminder to keep that famous Starsky temper in check. Can you dig it?”

Starsky opened his wallet, put a hundred on the table. Then he was through the swinging door and taking the stairs three at a time to Alice’s apartment. He didn’t bother knocking. He knew the door had no lock.

Sweet Alice was standing in front of the sink, the curtain to the bathroom open. Starsky could see she had hiked her dress around her hips and was wiping up between her legs. Sweet Alice was a naturally pale woman, but at his entrance what little color she possessed visibly drained.

“Starsky.” Her voice was as ghastly as her face. Alice dropped the washcloth and dress at the same time.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or your executioner,” Starsky said carefully, his instincts suddenly sharper. He’d expected some reaction to his appearance in her room. Just not this. Starsky shut the door behind him, then took a ladder-backed chair and shoved it under the knob, in effect locking the door.

“Heard you and Hutch had a little rendezvous last Sunday,” Starsky said neutrally.

“That’s right,” Alice readily admitted, giving every impression she was eager to talk. “But he didn’t do nothing, Starsky. Just slept over for a few hours. He was gone with the sun. I swear.”

Starsky believed her. Hutch wasn’t the kind of man who had to fuck his way through half the whores in town to prove his manhood. Everybody on the force lower in rank and with the sense the Gods gave a fly were afraid of Starsky and Hutch. And with good reason. The partners were heavy and had nothing to prove to anybody.

“So, Hutch didn’t want to get laid,” Starsky said easily. “What’d you two talk about?”

“I tried to talk to him, Starsky. Half the time that’s why he comes to see me,” Alice assured him. “Just to talk. Let off some steam.”

“What did he say Sunday?”

“Nothing,” she answered, starting to tremble, almost certainly in response to the blood Starsky could feel suffusing his face. “I asked if something was wrong with you and he said no. Then I asked him if the police were trying to force him to take the lieutenant’s exam. He’s talked about that before.”

“What’d he say?”

“No,” whispered Sweet Alice. “But he left something for you. It’s in the nightstand. I asked if he was coming back for ’em, but he said he didn’t know,” Alice offered eagerly, like a student trying to get in good with an especially tough teacher.

Keeping a sharp eye on Alice, Starsky moved to the bedside. Opened the drawer. He immediately recognized Hutch’s wallet and badge case. He picked them up, held them tight for a moment, then slipped them tenderly into his jacket pocket.

“That all he left for me?” Starsky asked, his anger having bled away when he saw his partner’s badge case cast aside like garbage.

“H-Hutch wanted me to tell you something,” Sweet Alice stammered. She put her arms up, as if to show she was unarmed. She took slow, careful steps and came to stand before Starsky. Gently, she put her hands on his face, brought her own face closer to her inquisitor’s. Alice placed her lips on Starsky’s. Starsky – who’d never felt less like kissing than he did in this moment – permitted her touch, because it was really Hutch’s touch he was waiting for. He shut his eyes. Then “Alice-Hutch” bit his lips, teeth sharp and efficient; a tongue drew Starsky’s out of his mouth and sucked on it, hard, before nipping it and letting him go.

“Does . . . does that mean anything to you?” Alice asked contritely, looking at the floor, probably too afraid to meet Starsky’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Starsky said, his voice neutral, his anger bleeding off. “Yeah.”

He pulled the bank envelope with Franklin’s 500 denarii from his inner breast pocket and peeled a twenty off a separate roll of bills in his jacket pocket. “The twenty’s for you,” Starsky said. “An ol’ friend of mine is coming by tonight, name of Dr. Franklin. You’ll remember him when you see him. Give him the envelope and show him a good time, for Hutch’s sake. Can you do that, Sweet Alice?”

“Of course,” she exclaimed, visibly relieved. “Anytime, Starsky.”

He nodded, then turned and yanked the chair out from under the doorknob. Starsky left Alice’s room as if the Eumenides – the Kindly Ones who weren’t ever kind – were directly on his heels. He didn’t hear Sweet Alice close the door. He didn’t hear her weep in relief. Instead, he was down the stairs and into the Torino, daubing at his bloody lip with the back of his hand, and peeling out because he could still feel the hot breath of the Eumenides on his neck.

Starsky knew what Sweet Alice’s message meant. Hutch had been on him for months to kiss him – really kiss him – but the only way Starsky knew how to kiss a man was brutally, not sweetly.

“Hutch was saying goodbye to me the only way he knew I’d accept it,” Starsky thought bitterly. He’d always meant to work his way up to kissing Hutch, like he was a girl, like the way he knew Hutch really wanted it, but what they had was so good without all that soapy heart-and-flowers stuff. He’d die for the guy. Wasn’t that enough? Did he have to kiss him like Rudolph Valentino, too?

It was obvious that Hutch hadn’t expected to come back from wherever he was being taken by IA. But why would they take him? IA rarely bothered to kill cops on the take, unless they were also mobbed up, but Hutch was neither dirty nor involved in organized crime. Starsky thought for a moment. Did IA torture Hutch for some kind of information? Instead of some convenient lightning strike, did they dope him up and wire him to a car battery, then give him another little shot to make him forget what they did?

What the fuck was going on with Hutch?

Starsky didn’t know, but he was going to find out. Fast.

It was nearly six o’clock when Starsky pulled into the Vend-Rite XXIV-Hour Laundromat. There was a payphone on the corner, and he detoured from his errand long enough to call Hutch and make sure he was okay. Between the two of them, their concussions totaled a baker’s dozen, but Starsky was being extra careful. He didn’t know what else was really going on, not since he’d talked with Huggy and Sweet Alice, but he knew it was more than a simple concussion.

Hutch answered on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.” Hutch sounded alert.

“You were awake, huh?” Starsky was pleased.

“Uh, yeah. When will you be home?”

“Why? Is something wrong?” Starsky asked, just a hint of menace in his tone and not a bit of it aimed at Hutch.

“Nah,” Hutch answered. “Just tired of delivery. Want to make us some chicken. Got to know when to put it in the oven.”

Starsky gave a silent sigh of relief. “I’ll be back by seven, Julia Puer.” He’d teased Hutch for years, comparing him to the former six-foot-two gladiator turned famous female French chef. He’d even bought Hutch her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

“Who?” Hutch said, sounding confused.

“Don’t worry about it,” Starsky answered, instantly worried about it. “We can watch a rerun tonight while we eat.”

“Okay,” Hutch said. “Bye—”

Shit! He’d thought the call was over. Starsky dropped another coin in the slot, dialed, and got his partner back on the line.

“Why’d you hang up on me?” Hutch asked, sounding a little confused.

“I thought you were done talking,” Starsky said. “Then I heard you say ‘buy’ as I was hanging up. Do you need me to stop at the supermarket and buy something for dinner?”

“No,” Hutch answered, sounding even more confused. “No. I was just saying ’bye, as in, ‘goodbye, this phone conversation is over.’ What’s wrong with you, Starsk? Have you reverted to your Hanna-Barberianism? Too impolite to say goodbye, tough guy?”

Starsky understood almost every word his partner uttered, but he had no fucking idea what he was talking about. Nobody said “goodbye” on the phone. If you were listening to the Emperor give a political speech on the television, or if you were at the Games and the sponsor was closing the day’s events, you’d get a formal “valete” for “farewell, everyone.” Talking to Captain Dobey in person definitely merited a “vale” or a salute. On the police radio you just said, “Zebra-III out.”

What was this goodbye shit?

Just one more area where Starsky had to clue Hutch in. For now, not wanting to upset his partner while he was away, Starsky played along. “Goodbye, Hutch.”

There was a long pause, as if Hutch knew something was wrong, but couldn’t figure out what.

“Goodbye, Starsk.”

Starsky entered the laundromat, took a good hard look around: couple of women with five stairstep kids between ’em, a toothless old lady behind the counter reading a fashion magazine, two gay guys folding their sheets. Nothing to worry about here. He went to the back of the store where they kept the Vend-Rite machine. He didn’t need detergent or fabric softener. He needed laundry bags, and the vending machine sold Real-Tuffs two to a box for one quatro each. “Four bags ought to be enough to haul our case jackets,” he thought.

Next stop was HQ, but Starsky didn’t park in the employee lot, choosing to go out back to the prisoner transfer dock. That door was only one floor up and one hallway down from the Records Department.

“Thank you, Fortuna!” he thought with real gratitude. Xerxes, the Greek janitor, was on the dock, having a smoke, his sandaled foot blocking the door open. Now that Starsky wouldn’t have to walk all the way around to the front of the building, there was an even greater chance of getting two years’ worth of records out of the station house without being caught and having to explain why he needed ’em in the first place. He trotted up the steps, gave Xerxes a grin and a nod, and took a quick peep through the small glass window of the loading dock door to make sure he was alone with his second-favorite informant.

“How are you doing, Detective Starsky?”

“Just fines, Xerks, now that I see you,” Starsky answered with a genuine smile. Every cop has an inside guy at HQ, but nobody could beat Starsky and Hutch’s confidential informant. One of the reasons Starsky did so much wet work was because he needed to have enough cash to buy people’s loyalty outright, unwilling to pay for loyalty just rented by the hour to the highest bidder. To facilitate that, Hutch had set up three LLCs: minor business fronts. Should anybody go looking for the owners, all they’d find was a series of post office boxes and the names and addresses of former cons who’d been dead at least ten years.

He and Hutch bought Xerxes three years ago through one of the dummy companies and helped the Greek get a job at HQ. Then they promptly emancipated him, with the understanding he would keep his eyes and ears open and quietly pass on what he learned. Nobody took any notice of the cleaning staff, not even the freedman with the shuffling step who rarely talked. Now he was the supervisor of the janitorial slave staff. Between his wages and the monthly stipend Starsky and Hutch paid him, the fellow was living his best life.

“So, what did I miss while I was out of town?” Starsky asked, waving the cigarette smoke away from his face. Xerxes promptly stubbed the butt out.

“Well, Master Hutch has not been too happy,” he opined. “Missing you, I would guess. Then I heard he was sick – or something. It was all very vague. Mysterious. I have not seen him here all week.”

“‘Detective,’ not ‘master,’” Starsky insisted firmly. “What else you know?”

“I know your partner was sent to Room XIII and he didn’t come out. I was relieved to at least hear he’s still in the land of the living.” Xerxes put his hand on the nob so he could remove his foot from the door. Starsky knew what was coming next: that shuffling maneuver with his feet that made the freedman still look like a slave.

“Nervous tell,” Starsky thought. “Not likely to outgrow it, since he’s been doing it forty-some years.” Conscious of tells, he suppressed a shudder. Room XIII was some heavy shit.

“Who ordered him there?”

“Who else? Dobey.”

“I heard that, too, but I don’t know that I believe it,” said Starsky. “I also heard that Internal Affairs picked Hutch up,” he supplied, paying close attention to the CI’s reaction.

Xerxes’ brows shot up into his salt-and-pepper hair. “Mister My-Shit-Does-Not-Stink Simonetti and Dryden, the piece of toilet paper that clings to him? Not possible.”

Starsky was a gifted interrogator; he didn’t need to read his yearly evaluation to know that. His gut told him Xerxes was telling the truth. “Why’d you say that?”

“Because Simonetti and Dryden do not have a key to Room XIII,” Xerxes said, touching the phallic symbol hung around his neck to show his sincerity.

“No shit.” Starsky thought for a moment. “Does Dobey have a key?”

“No, sir.”

“Then who does?” Starsky demanded.

“The morgue’s Chief Medical Examiner, the occasional visiting big shot – like that doctor we had here for a week – and me,” Xerxes said. “I have a key to every room in the station.”

Starsky pantomimed shooting himself in the head, showing silently that what he’d just heard had blown his mind. “Do you know what’s in Room XIII?”

“Yes. Would you believe me if I said it was a torture chamber?”

Starsky nodded, like a kid listening to a Grimmus’ Fairytale.

“Alas, it is not a torture chamber. No hooks. No saws. No hot branding irons,” Xerxes said. “It is just an elegant office, like you might see in a rich man’s house on the television show Palace or maybe for a big moneybag’s banker.”

Starsky was relieved that his partner hadn’t had to face anything too intimidating. “You ever go in there?” he asked.

“Once a week to dust and vacuum. I am the only person on the cleaning staff allowed to go in. It’s my one late night a week. But sometimes, when someone’s in residence,” Xerxes added cannily, “I am told to stay out, so I have not cleaned it in ten days. And let me show you something else,” he added, rolling up his sleeve to reveal a scab as big as a bottle cap. “Someone calling himself an Army doctor cut everyone to collect their skin, then took a blood sample, too. This is insane, yes?”

Starsky nodded in agreement. “Did he say what it was for?”

“Just some kind of hush-hush ‘experiment.’”

This time Starsky didn’t bother to hide a small shudder. “That’s fucked up.”

“You do not have to tell me twice.”

“This doctor have a name, Xerks?” Starsky asked.

“I knew you would want to know. Cohen. His name is Cecil Caleb Cohen,” Xerxes said confidently, making a “C” shape with one hand and holding up three fingers with the other. “Superior, but the quiet kind of intimidator. The bastard was only here for a week but brought his own name plate for his desk outside the morgue. Pretty vain, eh?”

“Pretty weird,” Starsky thought. Spook doctors working on Army medical experiments didn’t usually advertise their names. Just like Starsky didn’t carry ID when out on a kill mission. “Probably a dodge. If people think they know your name, they don’t go looking for another.”

“Tell me what this guy looked like, then I need a little favor from you.”

“White skin, somewhere between your color and Detective Hutchinson’s. Not fat. Not thin. Not tall like your partner, maybe a little shorter than you. On the slippery slope of old, but not quite there yet. Mustache, a lot like your partner’s, only light gray. And a bald head.”

“Tattoos? Scars?”

Xerxes shook his head. “He had a soft voice. Very polite. But he sweated power. He did not have to talk loudly to make people listen. You just knew you had to be attentive. Or else.”

Starsky felt that he knew this guy. “Maybe one of our cases?” he wondered.

Cases!

When he got out of the Torino, he’d tucked the two boxes of laundry bags inside his leather jacket. He fished them out now and gave them to his informant.

“I want you to head down to Collins’ cage,” Starsky instructed. “He’s got some files bagged up for me. Take a garbage can with you. Get the files, put ’em in these laundry bags, then put the bags in the trash can and roll ’em out here to the loading dock. When that’s done we’ll load up the trunk of my car. I’m gonna run a quick errand that can be made quicker if you gimme the key to Dobey’s office.”

“No problem, boss.” Three large rings of keys hung from Xerxes’ belt, the leather distressed from the weight of so much metal. Starsky quickly guesstimated there were at least two hundred keys. And not a single one of them was labeled. But that didn’t give his bondsman a moment’s pause. He quickly identified one, rotated the ring, unsnapped it, and handed the key over to Starsky.

“I’ll have this back in under ten minutes,” Starsky said. “Meet you here on the dock.”

“Keep it, Master,” Xerxes said with something that sounded almost like affection. “I have a copy.”

“You don’t have to say that,” Starsky said gruffly. “Even when we’re alone. You ain’t been mine and Hutch’s property for a long time.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Xerxes said, his tone humble, yet amiable.

Starsky nodded. He was right. That was why he and Hutch – out of the hundreds of slaves in the market – had picked the expensive, middled-aged Greek tutor, whose charges had outgrown him. The partners needed someone smart, reliable, attentive. This guy had successfully raised and educated six rich kids and didn’t have a single stripe on his back to show for it. That was a fine résumé right there. Pretending to be a janitor, even if it meant supervising the slaves who cleaned the toilets, was a good cover for a freedman who was essentially a spy in his and Hutch’s employ. They treated Xerxes well. And Xerxes was smart enough to know when he had a good thing going. He was also smart enough to stay on their good side, being fully aware that their bad side was really bad. It was a win-win situation, and Starsky considered it one of the best investments he and Hutch had ever made.

“Ten minutes,” he repeated to Xerxes, and started making his way stealthily to Dobey’s office.

Starsky avoided the route that would take him past the bullpen’s windows. It was more than two hours past shift change, and he didn’t expect anyone to be in the office, but better safe than sorry. He didn’t want to run into anyone, if he could help it. At the corridor that led directly to Dobey’s office, he used the ceiling-mounted corner mirror to check that the hallway to the side door was clear. Which it was. Moving quickly, he passed the water fountain and the candy machine and found himself in front of the captain’s door with the key at the ready. One more quick check, left and right, and he let himself in.

Once inside, he didn’t need to turn on the overheads. It was an hour ’til sunset and he had all the light he needed. The captain kept his personnel files locked in the big file cabinet and Starsky didn’t have any trouble picking the lock. He carefully looked at the top of the files, checking for any cute trick left behind to tell his boss someone had been fucking around in his file system. After a moment, he found it: a thin piece of transparent fishing line across the top of the files, way in the back. Starsky pulled a tissue from the box on Dobey’s desk and used it to cover his fingertips as he gently teased out the file labeled “Hutchinson, Kenneth Fulvius,” all the while careful not to disturb the fishing-line tell. He lay the file face-down on his right arm, balancing it on the sleeve of his jacket, making sure not to leave fingerprints. What he wanted would be in the very back of the folder.

 

INCIDENT REPORT NO.: BC78-90015001-IA

DATE: 28 AUGUST 1978

BACKGROUND: ROUTINE INTERNAL INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW

ASSIGNMENT: IA OFFICER ITALUS SIMONETTI JANUS DETAINED DETECTIVE THIRD CLASS KENNETH FULVIOUS HUTCHINSON TO DETERMINE IF HE IS INVOLVED IN ANY POLICE MISCONDUCT.

SUMMARY OF THE INCIDENT: HUTCHINSON WAS COOPERATIVE DURING THE STANDARD INTERVIEW PROCESS. NO REASON TO SUSPECT MISCONDUCT AT THIS TIME.

CASE DISPOSITION: ONLY ROUTINE FOLLOW-UP REQUIRED.

CLOSED

BAY CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT  / /  FOR OFFICIAL UPPF USE ONLY

 

Starsky would kill them all. “Bastard probably did it himself,” he thought, not knowing what “it” was, just knowing how much that Janus-faced Simonetti hated them both. But if Simonetti weren’t the brains behind his partner’s current mental disability, just a tool in someone else’s hand, Starsky would find out – and he’d get the info out of him, one way or another.

Simonetti would be getting a visit soon from David Michahēl Starsky, and he wasn’t going to like it.

Starsky replaced the file, then reversed what he’d done to the lock so the drawer would be secure when Dobey next checked it. Lastly, he used the tissue to remove any fingerprints he might have made on the metal file drawer, stuffed the tissue in his pocket, and left Dobey’s office the way he’d entered, careful to lock that door, too. He took a few precious seconds to use the bottom of his shirt to wipe his prints from the doorknob before he hightailed it back to the loading dock.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
6:05 p.m., Same Day

I hang up the phone and turn back to my casserole. Starsky home by seven is perfect – dinner will just be coming out of the oven.

The peas are freezer burnt but they’ve plumped up nicely in the bowl of warm water I placed them in while waiting for the egg noodles to boil. I learned that trick in college: all the best ways to take crap from the back of the freezer and turn it into edible food again. Sadly, there wasn’t much in the apartment to eat, despite the fact I went to the market the day before. None of those groceries are here in this strange kitchen that’s so like my own but just isn’t. Instead, I find a dusty can of mushroom soup on the top shelf that’s still safe to eat. (Man, am I glad I took Latin in junior high school! The “use by” date is in Roman numerals.) Last, but not least, I find two small chunks of hard cheese in the fridge – one that smells like parmesan and another that might be pecorino – but they’ll do the job of pulling this casserole together.

Just before he left, Starsky put on the radio, but all the advertisements were weird: cars I knew, like the Mercury, but strange automobiles I didn’t, like the Jupiter and Apollo; an announcement for next Saturday’s gladiatorial games; and a jingle for a slave market – with prices that would appeal to every master. That got on my nerves, so I put the stereo on for company and was glad to find my record collection wasn’t too changed from what I remembered. Most of the artists I like were there – Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Joan Baez, Crosby, Stills, and Nash – but the album covers weren’t right. Sometimes, just subtle differences, but others were strangely off the wall. Like my favorite Cat Steven’s record: instead of Buddha and the Chocolate Box, it was called Pax and the Chocolate Box. A female goddess in a toga (do women wear togas? I think they were called something else) had replaced the Seated Buddha.

I want to be scared. Everything is strange, damn it! Well, not everything. Just little things. But taken together it’s one big thing. Two deep breaths, I tell myself. Take two deep breaths and you’re back in the driver’s seat. I follow my own advice and tamp down the terror trying to swamp me. Cooking helps. Nothing like hustling around in the kitchen, making a home-cooked meal – even if it is just a college-kid casserole – to ground you in reality.

The noodles are done, so I drain them, then drain the peas over top of the noodles because the pea-infused water will add some extra flavor. I dump that on top of the pre-cut chicken on the bottom of the casserole dish and add the mushroom soup. A few rigorous stirs with a wooden spoon – but not too many or the peas will get mushy. After adding a little salt and pepper, I perform the coup de grȃce and grate the cheeses over the top. I glance at the clock. If I put this in the oven now, it’ll be done by the time Starsky arrives.

Starsky. Huh.

“I’m staying on top of the weirdness,” I think, as I leave the kitchen. I maneuver carefully around Cicero the cactus, then allow myself to collapse on the couch. Thankfully, at least my body still feels loose and limber from the amazing massage and the mind-blowing orgasm Starsky gave me. With dinner cooking and nothing left to do, I’m finally ready to think about what happened in the sauna.

It’s been eight months since I broke things off with Starsky. But that intimate massage and what followed sure didn’t feel like something broken. It felt good. Natural. Sexy and comforting all at once. Starsky took care of me in every way you can take care of someone you love. But there was something else: an edge. A sense of power held in check. Danger. Yes, sexy and comforting and dangerous, all at once. Not a combination of feelings I’ve ever associated with Starsky in the past. At least, not in bed.

Dangerous.

Starsky and I take our oaths “to serve and protect” very seriously. We’re cops who get the job done, and it’s a hard job, most days. There’s no doubt that Starsky can be a dangerous man. He’s killed in the Army and in the line of duty more times than I care to count. Some of those kills saved my life. Yet Starsky has a hugely playful nature that’s the perfect foil to my own simmering impatience infused with skepticism. Sure, Starsky has a temper, but it’s fast and flashy and swiftly burns down to a steady heat that fuels our investigations. I can fly off the handle, too, but I pretty much live in a state of slow burn, at least while we’re on the job. I keep a façade of cool, but that’s all it is: a veneer. At home, I work hard to make that mask a reality – meditation, music, yoga, journaling – but they’re not enough. I know I’m prickly, just like that big cactus next to me. That’s why Starsky is the ideal partner for me, with his chinchilla schemes, pet rocks, and peanut butter and jelly burritos. There are other people that lift my spirits, too – Huggy, Minnie, Kiko, Edith, Lisa, Sweet Alice, End-of-the-World Eddie, just to name a few – but like the song says, Starsky is my bridge over troubled water.

Starsky thinks we’re lovers, present tense. And why not? I didn’t do or say a thing to discourage him in the sauna. I could have, but I didn’t. Why not?

Because I never stopped wanting him, I suppose. I was feeling low and confused and I let Starsky take the lead.

Okay. Fair enough. I’m confused, concussed, and feeling like Alice in Wonderland falling down the magic rabbit hole, but I was calling the shots by the end, right? Right?

In retrospect, it’s more like Starsky was in charge and just letting me think I was. Truth is, until Starsky came back and got me moving off the bathroom floor, I was gone. Checked out. My partner gave me some semblance of control. Intentionally. For a moment, I’m humbled and embarrassed: Starsky knew just what to do to bring me back up, back to myself. And I call myself the brains of our outfit.

He even replaced that ugly statue with one of Cupid and Psyche, for which I’m grateful. It’s good not to be staring at those contemplative gargoyles that could so easily be an outward depiction of my inner thoughts. Instead, I’m drinking in two beautiful cherubs, one wooing and the other bashfully accepting the attention.

I close my eyes, rest my head on the back of the couch cushions, and sink into Cat Steven’s lyrics, just needing to turn off my thought processes for a while, just stop thinking for a minute, because right now my brain feels like a grape that’s dried on the stem to a shriveled-up raisin. I’ve got no juice.

It seems like just a few minutes later that I hear both the tinkling notes that signal the end of Home in the Sky, the last track on the album, and a rattle of keys in the lock. Starsky peeks his head around the door and says, “Get up and help me carry this crap. It’s heavy.” He darts away and I can hear him thundering down the stairs at top speed. I get up and look at the landing.

There’s a half a dozen books in a blue net bag, which I remember Starsky borrowing from me and never bringing back, and what looks like two clear garbage bags full of brown paper grocery sacks. Just then I hear the carved tree door downstairs slam open, and I see Starsky staggering under the weight of two more large plastics bags of – what? I pick up the bags in front of me and I can tell immediately they hold paper – lots and lots of paper. It’s easy to believe paper is made out of trees when you get a stumps’ worth of it together. I haul them in, praying the whole time the cheap plastic doesn’t rip, and stack them under the windows that face the street, right next to the table I use as a desk.

“Looks like you brought me a lot of homework,” I say as Starsky pushes past me, huffing and puffing, and dropping two more sacks on top of the pile I’ve started.

“Damned, right, Professor Hutchinson,” Starsky answers, slightly winded. “And we’re gonna be in hock for life to Charlie Collins if we don’t get these back to him tooth sweet.”

“That’s tout de suite, Gordo,” I automatically correct.

Starsky rolls his eyes in response. “Sometimes I don’t know why I even try with you, Hutchinson. My life would be so much simpler if I didn’t.”

“But who would cook for you if I weren’t around?” I ask, giving him a shoulder bump to show I didn’t mean anything by my crack.

“Yeah, let’s eat,” Starsky says, divesting himself of his jacket and shoulder rig, tossing them on my makeshift desk. “I’m starving.”

In a second, we’re ensconced at the kitchen table and, before I know it, we’ve consumed half the casserole between us. Starsky gives a small burp of appreciation and pats his tummy, a happy expression on his face.

“That was good. Nice and simple. You’ve never made it before. How come?”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “I make it all the time.”

“No, you don’t,” Starsky insists. “You usually make weird stuff like ‘calf’s face a la tit-day-voodoo.’ The only saving grace from that dish is you serve it with French fries.”

“Tête de veau? Starsk, that’s gross. I sometimes eat veal in a restaurant, but I would never make it at home. It would feel like cooking a baby.”

“Hey,” Starsky protests. “I’m not the new Master of French Cooking like you, collegium boy.”

“What are you talking about?” I’m genuinely confused.

Starsky pops up from his chair and grabs a cookbook off the top of my fridge. “This is what I’m talking about.” He sits down and reverses the book so I can see it. He flips to several dog-eared pages, announcing each recipe as if he’d found it written in a toilet stall: “Pigeon, AKA flying rat! Pig trotters, AKA shit-feet! Last, but not least, is ‘and-toilet’ – the grossest-smelling sausage in the world.”

My mom loves French food, which might be part of the reason why I’ve avoided it like the plague as an adult, having had it pushed on me so much as a kid. For the most part, I agree with Starsky: the dark underbelly of haute cuisine is not for the faint-hearted. Yet, I recognize my handwriting in the margin notes. It’s just that I have no memory of making these notes or making these recipes. But Starsky’s too-accurate-to-be-faked mispronunciations and obvious disgust show he’s truly been exposed to these not-for-the-faint-of-heart dishes. Nevertheless, Julia Child’s cookbook is familiar. I’ve seen it in the stores a dozen times, but I just don’t remember owning a copy. I flip it closed and look at the cover. The first author listed is Julia Puer. Slowly, my junior high school Latin comes back to me: Mother – mater. Father – pater. Child – puer.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Starsky says, his hand coming up to grip my shoulder. With his other, he pushes aside the cookbook and my plate like they’re garbage so he can lean in close and use his right hand to cup my unbruised cheek. It feels nice. And I’m glad I shaved while Starsky was out running his errands. Gun calluses catching on beard stubble isn’t nearly so nice as a smooth caress.

“Let’s lie down for a little bit,” Starsky says. “If you want, we can, you know, look for a rerun of The French Chef.”

“No,” I say quickly. “No TV.”

Starsky’s fingers sink into my robe and he pulls me to my feet, steering me firmly towards the bed. “C’mon, big guy. Let’s get horizontal.”

I’d woken up in my bathrobe and hadn’t bothered changing into clothes, other than stepping into a pair of boxes. Never work in the kitchen with your junk hanging loose is my firm philosophy. So, when he gets us to the bed, it’s easy work for Starsky to push the robe off my shoulders. I’d already returned the afghan to the couch before I started cooking, so all I have to do is pull down the covers and slide in between the sheets. Starsky sits on the edge of the mattress, kicks off his shoes, divests himself of two ankle holsters (one on each leg), wriggles out of his too-tight jeans, briefs, and socks as one unit, leaving his dagger on his belt. (How had I gotten used so quickly to seeing it there?) Lastly, he peels off his equally snug t-shirt. Lithe and limber, he half-turns towards me, in a half-lotus position: right foot resting on his left thigh, his left foot still on the floor.

He’s beautiful, I think, not caring if the thought shows on my face. The bedside lamps are off, but there’s enough light from the kitchen to clearly see my partner. His Apollo’s belt is deeply cut into the lean waist. Even clothed in dark curls, his pectorals and washboard abs are clearly defined. His lean, sinewy hands rest on his thighs. My heart is thudding in my chest; I’m trying to hide that my breathing has quickened at the sight of this gorgeous, naked man. I can’t even bring myself to look at Starsky’s face. I’m not sure what I’ll see there. I’m not sure I want to.

“Shove over,” Starsky commands. “I need more room.”

I comply as he lifts the covers and stretches out on the bed, as unconscious of his nakedness as a cat. No. Nothing as mundane as a cat, but a panther. Beautiful to look at, dangerous to touch. Before he pulls the sheet up to his chest, I see his cock is curled quietly against his thigh, no indication that something more is getting ready to happen. He rolls onto his side, facing me, then adjusts me and the pillows so that our heads share one. I’m already so hard in my boxers it almost hurts.

“I’m gonna give you something you’ve wanted for a while,” he says, his lips so close to mine we’re sharing the same breath.

Starsky leans in and gently presses his lips to mine. His kiss is light, tentative, like he’s a kid on his first date and isn’t sure what he’s doing. If there’s one thing I learned during our affair, it’s that Starsky is a terrific kisser. I go along, giving back no more than I’m given, mirroring Starsky’s play. His lips gently map my discolored cheek, my temple, nuzzle into my hairline. It feels so good, so caring, giving me something I didn’t realize I needed until it happens: comfort. Each touch of Starsky’s soft lips reassures me, conveying that everything will be all right. Because we’ve got each other.

Backtracking down my unbruised cheek, Starsky gently takes my bottom lip between his teeth. Applying just enough pressure to trap my lip but not hurt it, he uses it to guide me, and I find myself on my back, with Starsky on top of me. I spread my legs so he can lay between them, slot our groins together. My dick is so damned hard it could hammer nails, but the mound of Starsky’s cock is still lax, soft. I’m embarrassed. I thought I knew where this was going, but now I’m unsure of what Starsky wants.

“I’m sorry,” I begin, but Starsky shushes me with a kiss, this one deeper, more assertive.

Now he works his way down my neck, nipping playfully, then he tongues the tiny cup at the base of my neck – where the collarbones meet – with gusto. I thrust up involuntarily and Starsky laughs softly. It’s clearly a happy sound, not driven by derision. Suddenly, he dips his head and bites the slab of muscle between my neck and my shoulder, not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard, nevertheless. The contrast between soft and simple and sexy and demanding is surprising. My hips rise of their own accord, and I grind my stiff cock against Starsky’s lax one, which I find isn’t so lax anymore.

I may have shaved today, but Starsky hasn’t since yesterday. His Thursday-o’clock-shadow is rough. There’s no mistaking I’m in bed with a man, as he uses his chin to paint up one side of my neck and down the other. Given two more days, I know his beard would be soft, but this crop is short and sharp, yet feels so good scraping away any inhibitions, or questions, about where this is going. Next thing I know, Starsky has buried his face in my hair, breathes deeply, and mutters something I can’t make out. Then he noses my hair out of the way and bites my left earlobe. Hard.

“Too rough,” I complain with little fire, stroking my hands up the long, lean muscles of his back, soothing, encouraging him to slow down. Starsky grunts in answer and grinds his now fully erect cock into mine, his thrust firm, the movement possessive.

He grabs me by the shoulders, holds on tight, supporting his upper body weight there, pinning me down. My hands drop lower to caress his ass and to help get us aligned so our cocks are side by side, not stacked on top of each other. I know from experience that my lover likes it when we rub one off together. Starsky thrusts again, and we’re aligned, but the sensation isn’t pleasant; we’re dry-on-dry and my boxers aren’t helping the situation.

“Lube,” I say. “In the drawer.” At least, I hope it’s in the drawer where I usually keep it, having forgotten, for just one moment, this isn’t my place.

“Yeah, yeah,” Starsky says a little breathlessly. “I know where the stuff is.”

He lets go of me just long enough to stretch out his left hand, his fingertips barely able to snag the drawer knob, but he teases it open on the first try and fishes out the tube. The smile that greets this effort is broad and white in the dim light, like he’s found a pot of gold. In the meantime, I’ve pushed off my boxers. Starsky’s right hand returns to my shoulder, holding me tight, tighter than before, and I think it might bruise, but I’m so turned on I don’t care. My Hanna-Barberian has the tube of Surgi-Lube in his left hand and uses his teeth to unscrew the cap. He spits the cap across the bed and, unerringly, it lands in the still-open nightstand drawer. Even in bed my partner is a dead shot.

Without fanfare, he squirts a doughnut’s worth of the clear gel on my chest, right between my sensitive-as-hell nipples. Then he suddenly leans forward and kisses me again, rougher in his excitement. I give back as good as I get, letting him fish my tongue out and suck on it, fellate it, really, like he’s going down on it. This makes us both crazier, our cocks dryly grinding together. At this rate, we’re going to get road rash.

“Lube,” I exhale into Starsky’s mouth, but then I don’t bother to wait for him to take care of business. My shoulders may be pinned, but my arms are free. I scoop up the lube on my chest and wrap my slick hand around both our shafts. It seconds, we’re both moving smoothly, in rhythm together.

I feel Starsky shift position. For a moment his cock leaves mine and I instantly miss the contact. Then he’s kneeling up, his knees resting against my butt. My legs butterfly open, giving him full access to my junk. Those eyes, wine dark, meet mine. I’m panting like I’ve run a marathon. I see something in those hooded eyes, and I don’t know what it is, but I trust Starsky, and I nod. In answer, my right nipple gets a hard pinch.

“Oww,” I gripe. “Ease up a little bit.”

Starsky smiles. But for once I don’t know what it means. Then he takes my cock in hand, and I find it impossible to care. His grip is firm – firmer than usual, back when we did this as lovers – but that thumb of his is just the same, rubbing the wrinkle of flesh just below my head, making my brain light up like a pinball machine on full tilt.

“Slow down or I’m gonna come,” I gasp, not sure I want him to slow down, but certain I want to give fair warning.

He does slow down. His fingers leave my shaft and caress my balls, first gently, then firmly, the pressure almost too much. I’m about to say something when those slippery fingers slide behind my balls and stroke the flesh there. Damn! That feels so good, I think, wishing he’d go lower. I get my wish and I feel a finger circle my hole. Oh, God! When we were first together, I’d craved ass play, but in keeping in tune with his express “I’m not ready for anything too heavy,” I never asked for it and I never tried it on him. Now I’m in seventh heaven as that lubed-up digit circles and presses, not all the way in, but just enough to tease.

“Beg me,” Starsky says.

While it may be the way I feel, I’m still a little turned off by the word choice and tone. But if Starsky wants to play tough-guy, I’m willing to go along, unwilling to let anything spoil the buzz I’m feeling.

“Please,” I obey. “Put it in.”

“Good boy,” he says, and slides his finger in me.

I’ve played with myself, even used a small dildo a long time ago to see what it would feel like. But nothing beats the reality of the man you love taking a part of you that you’ve never given to anyone else. It feels wonderful, like tendrils of electricity are racing back and forth between my brain, my balls, and my cock. Hell, even my feet feel the excitement; my toes curl in pleasure when Starsky nudges something deep inside me. Just one touch and it’s like my cockhead after it’s been rimmed too long and I just have to come – or I’ll die.

“First try,” Starsky says. “Just call me ‘one shot.’”

“Call you anything you want,” I gasp. “Just do that again.”

Starsky does. Firmer, rougher now. I groan deep in my chest, trying hard not to shout in delight.

Again, Starsky laughs. “You’re tight,” he announces. “Really tight. Maybe you should get struck by lightning more often.”

“No thanks. One more time,” I wheeze, and this time I really am begging.

Starsky’s knowing finger circles my prostate and that’s all it takes: I’m coming like a teenager, shooting come on my chest, belly. . . . Even my neck isn’t spared. Giving me no time to catch my breath, Starsky pulls his finger from my channel. His other hand lets go of my shoulder, then he hooks both hands under my knees and hikes my ass up onto his thighs.

Hand still slick with lubricant, Starsky strokes his hard cock and nudges my hole.

“No,” I tell him firmly. He frowns, and I think he’s gotten the message.

But he doesn’t stop. Now his dick is totally lined up. And I’m about two seconds away from being fucked whether I like it or not.

I reach up and grab Starsky by the hair. Using my greater weight and the hope that he doesn’t want me to snatch him bald, I roll us over until I’m on top, pinning him.

“I said no!” I release his hair and pin his wrists to the mattress.

“What’s this ‘no’ bullshit?” Starsky is incredulous. I’ve straddled him and can feel his rock-hard cock tapping my ass crack. Obviously, his dick isn’t ready to concede defeat.

“You’re the one who said you weren’t ready for anything ‘too heavy,’” I remind him. “Well, neither am I. When we go all the way, we both have to be on the same page. And I’m not there yet.”

Starsky starts to struggle. I allow my full weight to pin him.

“What are you doing?” I demand, bewildered, angry, and – truth be told – more than a little unnerved by what almost happened. “Have you looked at yourself? My partner wouldn’t do this – not this way.”

I feel Starsky go lax in my grip. Even his cock falls into a soft mound I can feel under my ass cheeks.

“You can let go,” he says coolly, his voice commanding. Dignified. “I’m not a rapist.”

I let go of his wrists and get off his body. Starsky gets out of bed and begins to re-dress. I’m expecting him to be angry, but instead he’s ice.

Once he’s fully clothed, he turns to me. There’s something in those gorgeous eyes that wasn’t there before. I think it’s hurt, but I can’t tell for sure because of the stone mask that hides Starsky’s usually cheerful face.

“I didn’t do anything we haven’t done a hundred times before, Hutch,” he says evenly. “Usually, you like the ‘no’ game. Anybody can change their mind mid-stream, but just don’t expect me to be the High Priest Callundra and read your mind.” He stops, rests his hand on the hilt of his dagger. “And don’t ever say again that I’m not your partner. If anything, you’re the one not acting like my partner.”

I watch Starsky turn his back, head over to the desk, and don his shoulder holster and jacket. “I’m gonna sleep at my place tonight. Don’t forget that Dr. Franklin’s medico will be by in the morning to do your return-to-work physical. Don’t say anything stupid and you should pass. In the meantime, start reviewing our latest case jackets and take a look at the introduction in the history book with the green leather cover. That should give you a little background to re-build your memory on.”

Starsky walks to the front door. Stands in front of the gladiator poster. “Don’t leave the apartment,” he says firmly. “Take my word for it, you ain’t ready to fly solo. I’ll pick you up for work tomorrow at three.”

“Starsk, w-wait—” I stutter, but he’s gone.

David Michahèl Starsky
9:40 p.m., Same Day

Starsky palmed Hutch’s keys to the Galaxy when he put on his jacket and made sure he kept his own keys to the Torino. “Without wheels, he’ll be less likely to wander off,” he thought. If Starsky were the kind of man who could own up to being shocked, he would have to admit that he was in shock right now. But he wasn’t that kind of man. He was by nature and training active, not reactive. Now wasn’t the time to mull over that crazy failed attempt at fucking his partner – screw that! – making love to his partner. Instead, he put all the heavy stuff that went down at Hutch’s place in a box and put the box on a shelf in the closet of his mind. He was good at compartmentalizing. When he had time, he’d open that box and figure out his next play. For now, he couldn’t afford any distractions. He was on a mission.

Earlier today, on the way back to Hutch’s apartment, Starsky had made a short detour and driven by Simonetti’s apartment block. Nice enough neighborhood, the best Simonetti could afford with two ex-wives and three kids in private school, but not so nice that anyone was going to bitch to public services about a broken streetlamp. He’d let off the Torino’s gas, slowed down to 25, and pegged a rock at the high bulb – smashed it on the first try, which made him grin.

“Call me Deadeye Dick,” Starsky had thought smugly, still tooling along below the speed limit. No one had been around to see his terrific shot, but that would have been kinda counterproductive, wouldn’t it? The important thing: Simonetti’s parking spot – 1B – would be shrouded in darkness.

After leaving Hutch’s place in the Galaxy, but before returning to Simonetti’s neighborhood for the second time today, Starsky stopped at Bay City’s largest and, incidentally, oldest and busiest Coursehound Bus Terminal. Both he and Hutch kept bus lockers there with hideout cash, changes of clothes suitable for every occasion from uptown soirée to Skell Alley stakeout, fake identification, dead throwaway guns – the usual. He selected his outfit with care and put it on over his clothes. Then he returned to Hutch’s heap, glad for another reason to have “borrowed” the car, which was so non-descript as to be invisible.

He left the bus station and drove back to Simonetti’s part of town. Starsky parked the bucket of bolts six blocks away, in the jam-packed public lot of the Temple of Fortuna, which was having its big BINGO EXTRAVAGANZA until midnight.

Finally, he walked to Simonetti’s building to wait.

Starsky kept his ear to the ground; he knew IA’s Thursday night poker game usually ended around 9:30. At 10:00 p.m. sharp, Simonetti pulled into his parking spot. The man would live just long enough to regret being too predictable. Starsky was ready. His disguise was a knee-length natty raincoat, an oversized porkpie hat that shadowed his face and masked his curly hair, and a pair of the most common work boots sold in the city, two sizes too large for Starsky’s feet but offset by three pairs of heavy socks. And gloves. When you’re committing a crime, you gotta have gloves. He rummaged around in the garbage cans by the back door, just another hobo out after curfew, seemingly paying no attention to the sedan that had just pulled up.

This was the most dangerous moment of the hunt. If Simonetti smelled a rat, he was just as capable of shooting first and asking questions later as Starsky was.

“Step off, you Gods-be-damned bum!” Simonetti growled as he passed Starsky, who was bent nearly double inside the garbage can closest to the back door of the apartment building. “If I see you around here again, I’ll run you down to county and brand you myself!”

Making his voice hoarser and lower in pitch, Starsky mumbled, “I’m moving, chief. No trouble from me.” He emerged from the can. It was then he shot Simonetti in the spine, just low enough to paralyze him from the waist down, but not so high as to shut down his heart and lungs. The suppressor on his throwaway worked perfectly – Starsky always carried at least one untraceable gun, never knowing when you might need to shoot someone and not have ballistics come back to haunt you.

With nary a second thought, Starsky walked up to Simonetti’s prone body and kicked him in the face. If the Internal Affairs officer had been gathering breath to yell for help, Starsky’s swift action put paid to that plan.

Starsky stooped, relieved his victim of his sidearm, picked up Simonetti’s keys, and let himself into the hallway. He checked that the coast was clear, then grabbed Simonetti by his belt and his collar.

“Heavy fucker,” Starsky thought, even as he took note there was no blood trail. He’d purposely selected a .17 HMR in the hopes the small-caliber round wouldn’t cause a through-and-through wound that would leave a mess behind. That tiny bullet had probably broken the spine before tumbling through Simonetti’s guts, ripping a path of unrepairable destruction; bad luck for Simonetti, but it could be worse – if Starsky’d gut shot him, the man would be in a world of hurt. Mercifully, he wouldn’t be feeling a thing.

Everyone Starsky knew was a killer. That’s just the way the world turns. But at least he wasn’t cruel about it.

Starsky dropped Simonetti in front of his apartment door just long enough to key open the lock. Then he flung him over the threshold and spun the deadbolts closed behind him.

It took a few hearty grunts, but he manhandled Simonetti across the living room and propped him against the couch. Starsky took a seat on the coffee table; you didn’t have to have fancy degrees like his partner to instinctively understand the advantage of hovering over your prey.

“That slug blew out your L5 – you’ll never walk again, Simonetti. But I think you know, even if you could, you ain’t walking away from this.”

“Wha’d’you want, Starsky?” Simonetti slurred around swelling lips and a handful of broken teeth. Starsky gave him credit for keeping his cool in a very uncool situation.

“While I was out of town, you pulled my partner in for ‘routine’ questioning,” Starsky stated casually. “I’ve never been able to figure it out, ’cause we’ve never done a damned thing to aggravate you or anyone else in IA, but you’ve always hated me and Hutch like we’re Goths on a rampage.”

“And you’re just poor misunderstood lil’ lambs,” Simonetti slurred. “You two have been on my kill list for a while. Just rotten luck you got me before I got you.” He coughed, gasped, coughed again, then got a bit of his breath back. “Looks like I was right,” he said, looking Starsky dead in the face from beneath his sparse eyebrows. “You may not be on the take, but there’s other ways to be dirty cops. And you two stink like skells.”

“This isn’t the time or the place for a little reverse psychology,” Starsky answered evenly. “Ain’t nothing you can say is gonna piss me off enough to kill you before you’ve answered my questions.”

“Fuck you, Starsky,” Simonetti spat out. A tooth and a gobbet of blood spattered his tie. “Fuck you and that blond horse you ride on.”

“Good idea,” Starsky said false brightly. “Let’s talk about Hutch. Why’d you pull him in for questioning?” Starsky held up one finger in warning. “And don’t give me any bullshit about ‘routine’ interview.”

“I’m a dead man, no matter what.” Simonetti’s head sagged, coming to rest on his chest. “Why should I tell you jack shit?”

“Think really hard about the answer to the next question I’m gonna ask you.” Starsky leaned forward, placed his hand under Simonetti’s jaw and lifted his head so that the man could clearly see his eyes. “Do you believe I’d do everything in my power to protect Hutch?”

Simonetti’s eyelids fluttered. “Shock,” thought Starsky. With his right hand, he gave the bloody face a light slap, like the kind you use when putting on cologne. “Earth to Simonetti. Answer my question.”

“Yes,” the IA cop grunted out. “You’d sell your soul to Pluto for your blond bottom.”

“Okay. We’re on the same page, at last. Everybody knows there’s no love lost between you and your exes, but I think you’d be very disappointed to find out your kids were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Am I right?” Starsky asked solemnly.

That seemed to rally Simonetti. “Yes, damn you!”

“So, nothing else bad needs to happen to anybody,” Starsky said reasonably. “Seriously, why did you question Hutch? What did you want to know?”

Simonetti started to slide to the left. Starsky put out his booted foot to arrest his fall. “No dying on me yet. Answer the question. And you better sound damned sincere.”

“I . . . didn’t . . . question . . . Hutchinson. Your captain said . . . said your partner was . . . being taken ‘off site.’” Simonetti’s breathing grew shallower in proportion to the color leaving his face. “Dobey called in a chit . . . I wrote the report to cover . . . Hutchinson’s absence. End of story.”

“You’re telling me Dobey put you up to writing a false report?”

“Favor wasn’t . . . for Dobey. That Army doctor . . . Cohen . . . took your partner . . . for a little . . . ride.”

“The mysterious Dr. Three-Cs Cohen,” Starsky thought. He pulled his dagger and, weak as he was, Simonetti nevertheless flinched. Instead of cutting the IA cop’s throat, Starsky sliced open the sleeve of the shirt and jacket that covered Simonetti’s right arm.

There it was: a scab a little smaller than a double drachma. And Starsky could see the slight puncture wound and a small bruise in the bend of his elbow left by the needle used to collect a blood sample.

“Don’t . . . don’t hurt my . . . my kids,” Simonetti whispered, his voice nearly gone. “I swear by Justicia . . . I’m telling the truth.”

“I believe you.” Starsky’s bull-shit-o-meter hadn’t pinged once. Now he had to track down this Cohen character and put the squeeze on him. “Don’t worry. I ain’t got nothing against your kids.”

Simonetti gave an audible sigh of relief.

“How do you want to end this?” Starsky asked respectfully. “Gun, garrote, or gimlet?”

“Gun,” Simonetti husked out. Starsky sheathed his dagger, then pulled his sound-suppressed piece and put a slug between the man’s eyebrows. The small-caliber weapon left only a tiny hole. “At least Simonetti’s kids will get to have an open-casket funeral,” Starsky thought. “A little cadaver putty will cover that right up.”

With no clues left behind and, therefore, nothing to clean up, Starsky placed the untraceable pistol on the coffee table. The only thing that could tie him back to the scene was the murder weapon, and he had no intention of being caught with it.

After he stuffed the bloody gloves in the raincoat’s pockets, Starsky leisurely hoofed it to Hutch’s car, being sure to take a different route than the one he’d used earlier. Back at the Galaxy, to the sound of whoops and hollers of BINGO! accompanied by groans of disappointment, he balled up the hat, raincoat, boots, and socks, then dropped them in a dumpster behind the Temple of Fortuna: a notorious daytime hangout for drunks, broken-down gamblers, and every stripe of nobody. He was certain his disguise would either be eaten by the city’s garbage trucks or scavenged by some nameless skell. In any case, there would be no connection to Starsky.

Once in the car, he slipped into his Adidas’ and fired up the engine. When he was a couple of miles from Simonetti’s apartment, Starsky realized he was thirsty.

“If you have no objection,” he said to the empty passenger’s seat, “I think I’ll go through the pick-up window at Wendy’s and get a coffee before I go back to my place.”

 

Chapter 6:
Stranger in a Strange Land

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchison
Bay City, California
Saturday, September 3, 1978, A.D.

On day one, the Roman Empire fell.

Day two was slavery.

By day three, he’d vicariously lived through the Great War, only to switch to The History of the United States to find it renamed WWI, swiftly followed by WWII. The Holocaust sickened Hutch with its senselessness. Killing your workforce over religion? There are hundreds of Gods worshipped in the Empire. His own partner was a Jew. Madness. And the atom bomb? There are ten thousand ways to kill an enemy without destroying your planet.

Hutch picked up Silent Spring for a break from the staggering stupidity of the people of this world, only to find even greater horrors in the systematic murder of the natural world. He threw the book across the room after the last page. The phrase “in nature, nothing lives alone” haunted his thoughts.

The only thing he had to worry about back home was being assassinated so everyone else could move up in rank. Here, the newspaper documented a litany of woes. Hutch was shocked by the pollution. Smog. Poverty. Famine. Litter. The rape of the environment. The oil crisis. Yeah, back home you might be offed by a buddy on the force, but at least the streets were clean. And the so-called arms race on this Earth – he’d read that the stockpile of nuclear warheads was around seven thousand, but it would only take four hundred missiles to destroy the entire planet. Madness! Terrifying madness.

He cast his thoughts homeward. His world was dotted with tiny nuclear plants, each designed to power just the local city-state. The protocols in place made the likelihood of a meltdown remote, especially given that, should a reactor fail, the workers and all generations of their families would be summarily executed in the arena under the most gruesome circumstances imaginable, which made for a highly vigilant staff. Sure, there was always the chance of an earthquake or a tsunami or other natural disaster setting off a Caligula Syndrome of imminent meltdown – but it had yet to happen. And Hutch had a lot more confidence in his world’s ability to deal with such an incident, compared with this chaotic planet.

“Anxious,” Hutch thought. “That’s how I feel.” He took two deep breaths. He needed to put his mind back in the driver’s seat and send his emotions to the back of the bus. It took a moment, but he soon realized it wasn’t the fear of atomic annihilation he felt. He missed his partner. There was a place in his chest where Starsky dwelt, and that place was empty. When Starsky was away on a mission, Hutch could turn off that part of himself. Duty was duty. Nothing to be done about it. Now that it was his turn on a long-distance, open-ended mission, he wondered if Starsky ever missed him while out on assignment.

He thought not. Probably not. When on the scent of something, be it a new hobby or a new taco joint or a hot tip on a perp, Starsky could be obsessive to the point of fanaticism. He was all about the job, then had a woman at the local House of Meretrix afterward.

Hutch looked across the room at the phone. He’d already made his daily check-in call with Starsky’s counterpart. But what was the harm in calling again? Then go out for a beer? After being cooped up in the apartment for most of the week, Hutch felt the need to blow the dust off. In the end, he decided not to call Starsky; it felt too much like asking permission, and he’d be damned before he’d ask permission to leave “his” place to have a beer.

Hutch geared up, having found replacements for all his weapons save the flexible stiletto for his belt. It was hard for him to believe there was no Street of the Metal Workers on Earth II; the one shop he’d found with a display of daggers contained only crudely ground-down bayonets and a few clumsy cleavers for kitchen use. When he’d explained what he wanted to the tied-dyed, bearded craftsman, the fellow’s scraggly eyebrows had disappeared into his long hair, and he had had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Hey, man,” he said, “you’re not going to find that in Bay City. You’d have to go to Spain for something like that.”

“Hispania,” Hutch silently translated. He knew he wasn’t going to Hispania anytime soon. He’d just have to adjust. If he didn’t have a blade of Hispanian steel, no one else would, either.

Feeling only a little naked without his service dagger and his hideout knife, but having everything else intact – garrot, magnum, the .22 in its ankle holster, pocket knife (which had other tools on it, like a screwdriver, bottle opener, and scissors; “How clever,” he’d thought, when he bought it), and, of course, the razor in his shoe – Hutch was ready to go out and try to be him, his twin from this world. What better place to make his entrance back to society than The Pits?

Huggy’s place looked the same, but ever-so-slightly different. Bar, pinball machine, pool table – same layout. But there were only three women in the bar, and two of them were rather drab-looking waitresses. The third was a customer sitting at the counter, nursing a gin and tonic. She was in her sixties, if she were a day, and gay, if the butch haircut and the two women tattooed on her biceps were any indication.

“Where’s Huggy’s stable of hookers?” Hutch thought. “They can’t all be out on calls, even on a slowish Saturday night.”

He took a seat in a corner booth where he could keep his back to the wall and still eyeball the patron’s exit or be able to duck behind the bar and get to the entrance used for deliveries by the kitchen staff. It wasn’t long before Huggy came over with a beer on tap. He put the tall, sweating glass down in front of Hutch with a flourish.

“How’s my favorite blond centurion doing this fine slow evenin’?” Huggy asked, taking the bench seat across from Hutch. Huggy pulled out a new deck of smokes from his shirt pocket, tapped it twice on the tabletop, then proceeded to peel off the cellophane. It wasn’t long before he had a cigarette out and lit. Taking a long drag, he blew the smoke in Hutch’s general direction. Not enough to be a challenge, but enough to let Hutch know that Huggy was still mad at him. “And you’re welcome for the ride home, and I really dig how great you been in touch since your release from the hospital.”

“Mea culpa.” Hutch raised his hands to shoulder height, secretly delighted to see his answer was understood and accepted for the half-hearted apology it was. He reached for the beer and took a deep drink. “Just thought I’d check in with my favorite snitch and entrepreneur,” he said affably, licking the hoppy foam off his mustache. “Hey, where are all your girls?”

“You know I play the field,” Huggy answered, taking another puff, but this time shooting it from the corner of his mouth.

“No. I’m talking about your girls,” Hutch emphasized.

“Wha’choo implying, Blondie?” Huggy asked, looking indignant. “I’m street, but you know I don’t abuse the ladies. Every pimp I ever met was trash, pure and simple, and Mister Huggy Bear Brown be a lot things, but I sho’nuff ain’t trash – black, white, or brown.”

“Is Sweet Alice upstairs, at least?” Hutch asked, taken aback and trying not to show it. “I-I’ve got a case I need her help with and want to ask her some questions.”

“I stopped rentin’ her my upstairs room a year ago, when she started turnin’ tricks again,” Huggy said. “But you should know that, Hutch. How come you don’t? Is it somethin’ to do with the lightnin’ strike?”

“Huh,” Hutch said, stunned. This Huggy was not a pimp. Grudgingly, his estimation of the man went up, but he wondered what else he didn’t know.

“Well,” Huggy repeated. “Is it?”

“I guess,” Hutch answered vaguely, covering by taking another sip to give himself time to think. “I haven’t been out much. Mostly sleeping. Watching the boob-tube. Haven’t had any call to think too deeply this week. Must’ve slipped my mind.”

“I can tell you somethin’ else that’s slipped your mind: yours and Starsky’s tab. I think it’s about time we settled up, don’t you?”

“My Huggy wouldn’t give credit to his mother,” Hutch thought, “much less to a couple of cops.” Again, his estimation of this man rose. “Sure. What do we owe?”

“One-hundred-seventeen-dollars and fifty cents,” Huggy said with a squint not caused by cigarette smoke.

“Damn!” Hutch said. “That’s—” He took a moment to do the math in his head. “That’s 235 beers!”

“It ain’t all beer, Detective,” Huggy said with just a hint of sarcasm. “It’s hamburgers and French fries and reverse long-distance calls when you two need me to look up somethin’ hot while you’re undercover. And that’s just for August.” Huggy took a final puff, then stubbed out his smoke in the ashtray on the table. “Truth is, my rent was due five days ago. I paid most of it, but I’m still a little short. So, I need you, Mister Detective Hutchinson, to settle-up now, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, Hug,” Hutch said, digging out his wallet. He had six twenties left and lay five of them on the table. “Apply the change to tonight’s bill. I’ll have some fries and another beer.”

Huggy waved to a waitress, placed Hutch’s order with her, and told her to put the cash in the till.

“I’m not complainin’, mind you,” Huggy said when the server had turned away. “But your partner eats his weight in hamburger meat. It’s funny, though. Not like you to settle up so fast and pay for Starsky, too.”

“Maybe, in light of the shocking events of late, I’m turning over a new leaf,” Hutch said affably.

“No, that’s your partner talkin’, not you,” Huggy said with a hint of sly musing in his voice. “The Hutch I know squeezes dimes out of nickels, drives Bondo-mobiles to save money, volunteers at the co-op so he can get a price cut on his goat’s milk, and buys his groceries at the Eagle Discount Supermarket. Who’s this guy payin’ his and his partner’s bar bill?”

Hoping he hadn’t blown his cover, Hutch took another sip of his beer, really needing it this time. “Remember your training,” he scolded himself. “Always answer questions with questions.”

“What’s got you jammed up financially, Hug?” he asked, suddenly keen. “Tonight notwithstanding, this joint is usually hopping. Starsky and I sometimes wait an hour for our turn at the pool table.”

“Don’t matter how good business is when your landlord keeps doublin’ your rent.”

Hutch could hear the bitterness in Huggy’s tone, like smelling ash on the wind. He sat his glass down carefully, his predatory instincts ignited. “Keeps doubling?”

Huggy nodded, his expression grim. “Things ain’t been right since Amos Hambly, my ol’ landlord, died right here, where you’re sittin’. Remember it like it was yesterday. January third, just after the lunch rush. I was still takin’ down New Year’s decorations when Amos and Earnest – that’s his nephew who helps with the business – came in and took this corner booth. Things were pretty quiet, so I had a moment to spare for an ol’ friend, but I barely had time to say, ‘How do?’ before this creepy white dude comes in, radiatin’ all kinds of bad vibes, and scanned the place the way only professional muscle ever do. The next thing I know, I’m told to start a fresh pot of coffee, ’cause his boss has business to conduct with Mister Hambly.”

“You ever see this guy before?” Hutch asked, interested.

“His bald head looked like it’d been carved out of a cinderblock, then left in a cemetery for a hundred years to wear down the sharp edges,” Huggy said, his agitation showing. “So, I would’ve remembered him if I’d ever seen him before . . . and I hope to never see him again.”

“Did you have bartenders on staff that day?” Hutch asked, all detective now.

“Um-hum. Two, as a matter of fact. But he walked right past ’em and spoke to me personally.”

“He knew you were the proprietor.”

“He knew,” Huggy agreed.

“So, what did you do next?”

“What do proprietors do?” Huggy asked archly. “I went and put on a fresh pot of coffee. By the time the brew cycle ended, there were two other white dudes sitting in the booth with Amos and Earnest. I could see Cue Ball standing in the aisle, blocking anyone from coming near. I loaded up a tray with five cups and saucers, added the pot to it, along with some cream and sugar, and headed over. You wanna guess what happened next?”

“Mister Clean took the tray and indicated you should mind your own business in your own business.”

“Ding-ding,” Huggy said, doing a credible imitation of a boxing ring bell that signals the end of a round in a prize fight.

“Then what happened?” Hutch asked. “Because I know you didn’t mind your own business.”

“Mindin’ other peoples’ business is my business,” Huggy replied. “I set myself up at the end of the bar with a newspaper. Watched for over an hour as some lawyer-looking dude with a big briefcase and a lot of papers with tiny type flipped through them with Amos. I could tell that Amos wasn’t happy, but Earnest looked like he’d just won the Irish Sweepstakes.”

“What did the lawyer look like?”

“Straight outta central casting,” Huggy replied. “Jewish dude in a three-piece suit.”

“You said five cups,” Hutch said after a moment’s thought. “Amos, Earnest, Mister Clean, and the Lawyer. Who was the fifth man?”

“Oh, you mean Mister Tastee Freez?” At Hutch’s quizzical eyebrow, Huggy elaborated. “Another white dude with hair the color of vanilla ice cream.”

“C’mon, Huggy. You’ve got to know more than that.”

“He was hard to pin down, Hutch.”

“Height, weight, age? Give me something.”

“Not tall, not short. Middlin’ weight. Could have been an old sixty-five or a young seventy-five.”

“You’re not helping your cause here,” Hutch said before taking the last sip of his beer. The waitress chose that moment to appear with the fries and a refill.

“There was somethin’. . . . ” Huggy paused, stole one of Hutch’s fries, chewed it, then finally spoke. “There was somethin’ slippery about Tastee Freez. Like if you saw him on the street, you wouldn’t think twice about him, but if you’d walk past him, you’d feel like a goose was walkin’ on your grave. Like. . . . ” Again Huggy paused. “I don’t know, Hutch. Cue Ball gave off bad vibes, like he’d kill you as soon as look at you. That white-haired ol’ dude looked like he’d laugh while the murder was takin’ place.”

“Huggy back home would have never been this candid with his cop customers,” Hutch thought. Once again, his respect for this world’s Huggy Bear Brown rose another notch.

“Do you think you’d recognize him from a photo?” Hutch asked.

“Ol’ whiteys with money don’t never show up in mug books ’cause they got lawyers to tackle one end of the problem and private muscle to handle the other.”

“How do you know he has money?” Hutch asked as he used a paper napkin to dust the French fry salt from his mustache.

“‘Cause he bought ninety percent of Main Street and paid in cash.”

“Cash?”

“I saw the suitcase when it was opened a notch,” Huggy said, a note of awe in his tone. “Stacks and stacks of fifties and hundreds. ‘Perhaps you’d like my men to escort your nephew to the bank, where it can be counted and deposited?’ Ol’ Whitey asked. I watched Amos nod, but it was with tears in his eyes. As soon as Cue Ball, the lawyer, and Earnest spilt with the money, I went over to the table to check on Amos. He just didn’t look right. I had a tray and rag, like I was gonna clean up, when I saw Amos grab at his chest. ‘What’s wrong, Amos?’ I said and slammed the tray down, not givin’ a damn if I hit the half-empty coffee cups.

“‘I don’t know, Huggy,’ Amos said. ‘It’s like . . . I got . . . an elephant . . . sitting on my chest.’

“‘Stay cool, Amos,’ I said.

“‘I think you’d better call an ambulance for your friend,’ Tastee Freez said. And it really pissed me off, Hutch.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause that nasty fucker smiled when he said it.”

“I can guess the rest,” Hutch said. “You made the call, the ambulance came. I’d bet you even went along for the ride to the hospital.”

Huggy nodded.

“And somewhere in the melee, Mister Freez vanishes, never to be seen again.”

Huggy nodded again. “And Amos died before they got him to the hospital,” he said flatly. “That’s when I knew 1978 was gonna be a disaster of a year, and I ain’t been wrong. On Tuesday, January 31^st, I got a certified letter from JMG Landholding tellin’ me my rent would be doubled, starting February 1^st. Wasn’t no ‘thank you, Huggy, for bein’ a good tenant all these years!’ Just a ‘fuck you – pay me’ notification.”

“Damn! Is that even legal?” Hutch asked.

“I wondered the same thing myself,” Huggy answered. “My accountant’s got an attorney, and for fifty bucks he looked into it for me. Might as well have saved my money. Some big corporation bought the place lock, stock, and smoking barrel. S’pose new owners can do anything they want to the rent. It’s their property, after all. Now, if the landlord wanted to evict me, I’d have more options, but the corporation can raise the rent every month, if it wants to, especially since I was obliged to sign a month-to-month lease. Ain’t a damned thing nobody can do about it.”

“How come you’ve waited eight months to talk about this?” Hutch asked, genuinely curious.

“‘Cause I just got a second certified letter sayin’ I’m on notice for my rent to go up half again, come January. I’ve talked to my accountant. Most months I’m strugglin’ just to make payroll and supplies.” Huggy tapped out a second cigarette but didn’t light it. “I can probably handle the rate hike for a while, but by June of nineteen-hundred and seventy-nine, The Pits will either be out of business or operatin’ from a new location. And man,” Huggy added, “I may call this ol’ place The Pits, but I’m getting’ too old to work in a part of town that really is a pit. There was a reason I got this spot close to the precinct house. Cops can be assholes—”

“Present company included,” Hutch broke in.

“You said it, not me,” Huggy said. “But I like havin’ my brothers in blue drop in for a brew. Keeps out a lot of the trash and lowers your likelihood of gettin’ ripped off at gunpoint. So far, the only places I can afford are back in my old neighborhood. And you know what they say about the old neighborhood.” Huggy took a moment to light his smoke, taking a long drag before he finished his thought. “You can’t go back, Hutch. Too much time, too much water under the bridge.

“You can never go back.”

Dave Starsky
Brooklyn, New York
11:39 P.M., Same Day

Flatbush Avenue is never quiet. The overhead trains squeal and roar. Nearly everyone sitting on their stoops has a transistor radio blaring the music of the moment, oldies but goodies and platters that matter. It ain’t like when I was a kid. The Jews lived south of Farragut Road as far as the “L” shape made by the Belt Parkway. North of Farragut was all Italians. But now . . . Now the neighborhood is like the United Nations. Every corner is a different embassy: Hungarians. Jamaicans. Poles. Puerto Ricans. Probably some Transylvanians, too, for all I know.

Little Haiti is east of Ma’s apartment. Says she likes when the wind comes from that direction. “You can smell the spices. How can you not like a people who cook so beautifully?” She was always ahead of her time. When I was in fourth grade and brought Walter Jones home to play after school, the sole Black kid in my class, the only thing she said was we had to pick up our toys before dinner time. Once we ate, Walter went home, and I asked her if she was okay with me being friends with him.

“Why shouldn’t you be friends?” she asked, her face confused.

“You know,” I stammered. “We’re different.”

Ma took my hand and covered it with her own. “Hitler killed our people because we were ‘different.’ That should be lesson enough that different is good.”

After that, I never worried about bringing Walter or anyone else home, ’cause my mother wasn’t the type to have a cow over every little thing.

But I thought I was about to give birth to a whole herd of cattle on the Belt Parkway. It’s eleven-thirty on a Sunday night and the damned thing’s a parking lot. The closer the car service inches to the airport, the more I want to leap out and run the rest of the way to the terminal.

When, at long last, we get in sight of the American Airlines sign, I toss two tens at the driver and leap from the car. All I have with me was my wallet, badge, and a paper sack of New York bagels, having asked Cousin Sarah to mail me the rest of my stuff even as I kissed her and Ma goodbye.

I’m racing through the airport like a maniac. Good thing I know JFK so well. I should, as many times as I’ve flown in and out to visit Ma. I finally get to Checkpoint Charlie and I’m sweating worse than Hutch. My face feels flushed, which always makes my skin look darker, and I’m sure my hair looks like a rat’s nest. To make matters worse, I’m dancing in place ’cause I have to pee like a big dog. So, of course, I get pulled out of the line for a body pat-down.

“Look, ma’am,” I say to the FAA security lady feeling me up. “I know I look like a hijacker right now, but I’m really late ’cause the Belt was all jacked up, and if I don’t catch the redeye to Bay City my life will be over as I know it.” I lift the hem of my t-shirt and flash the badge on my belt. “Can you take pity on a fellow officer and cut me a break?”

She’s a beautiful Black lady, taller than me by three inches, and looking like 180 pounds of pure muscle in her airport uniform. She eyes me up and down, then shakes her beaded head with a rueful smile. “California cops ain’t got no pull in Queens, baby.”

“I’m not Californian,” I deny desperately. “I’m a hundred percent Brooklyn. Can’t you tell by the way I talk?”

“Yep. You and Bugs Bunny,” she says, unlatching the velvet rope and waving me through. “Be glad you’re cute, Brooklyn.”

“Thank you, Queens,” I call over my shoulder, already running for the gate.

I fling my ticket down on the counter, begging with my eyes for the lady to wave me through. Next thing I know I’m rocketing down the tunnel. If I’d been a second slower, the plane’s hatch would have pinned my jacket, making me have to stand all the way to Bay City. That or hang on to the fuselage if I’d been two seconds slower. Thank God the stewardess has pity on me and lets me take a leak before the plane takes off, or I would’ve had to pee in the vomit bag and hope it was waterproof.

At last, I’m tucked into my seat: lucky Row 13, Seat D. The last time my heart rate was this high I‘d just run down the side of a canyon to catch Vic Humphries before he could shoot Hutch dead. My partner was pinned under his car at the bottom of said canyon. I catch my breath by the time the drink service comes round and ask for some water and a pillow, which I get right away.

The flight is half empty and I have a three-seat row all to myself. All I want to do is stretch out and try to catch a few zees before we touch down in Bay City. I was gonna have Hutch pick me up at the airport, but instead I’m gonna take a cab – because (A) I want to surprise him, and (B) because I don’t know how well he’s feeling. I won’t know that for sure until I can check him out myself, in person. He’s been a little weird on the phone, but I haven’t wanted to call him on it. The way I figure, the more I bitch or fuss, the less he’ll call, and I like hearing his voice. Makes it easier to be apart.

My 11:59 lands at about a quarter after three in the morning, Bay City time. After the damned plane touches down, it taxis around the airport forever (I swear they land in Las Vegas and just drive the rest of the way to Bay City). Even with all this slowdown, by the time they open the hatch, and with no checked baggage, I should be in a cab no later than 4:00 a.m., which gets me to Hutch’s place around five. I’ll sneak in, make some coffee, and toast some bagels. Who doesn’t want to get up early for fresh New York bagels?

Damn. I’ve really missed him. In a lot of ways. In pretty much every way a man can miss someone.

Well, it won’t be long now.

It’ll be good to be home.

With Hutch.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchison
Sunday, September 4, 1977, A.D.

“Stupid!” Hutch berated himself as a shadow crossed over him.

As was his standard modus operandi, he’d limited himself last night to two beers with Huggy, then switched to Coke. What was unusual was the fact he stayed talking with the man long after closing time, fascinated by this not-Huggy. It turned out his double and Starsky were good friends with him, and he was glad to learn this fact before his counterpart’s partner returned. It would have given him away if he hadn’t known something so rudimentary as Huggy wasn’t a pimp and he was their top confidential informant.

Hutch had shambled back to his place close to 3:00 a.m., dropped his smoky clothes on the floor by the bed, and slid between the sheets. Even as he felt himself being pulled under by Morpheus, he’d had enough sense to finger the knife he kept under his pillow, where it belonged. He’s spent a better part of the week cleaning and sharpening the blade. Good thing, too, since he’d slept so hard he’d barely heard the intruder.

His hand closed on the hilt as he hurled himself towards the shadowy figure. There was no time to unsheathe his weapon from its leather scabbard, but Hutch knew it could be deadly in close quarters anyway. Depending on the speed of the invader, he figured he could either force the blunted weapon into a soft eye socket and into the even softer brain tissue beneath. Or he could press it against the enemy’s throat and throttle the life from him.

Naked, Hutch attacked.

As good luck would have it, the would-be burglar – or assassin? – was carrying something bulky, which he dropped immediately when Hutch made contact. He aimed his shoulder for the solar plexus but, given the height of the bed and the position of the intruder, Hutch hit low. “No matter,” he thought, wrapping his arms around a man’s pelvis, as evidenced by the soft mound of jeans-clad cock and a wealth of lean, hard muscle. The intruder dropped his bundle with an audible “ooof!” and small objects rained down upon Hutch’s bare back. Nevertheless, Hutch’s momentum carried him forward, tackling the man and bringing him down. Once on the floor, Hutch straddled the stranger’s legs, then pinned the flailing right hand. Now he could use his knife. He pressed the sheathed blade against the man’s throat, just above the walnut of cartilage that protects the larynx, deep into the groove below the jawbone.

“Hutch!” It was a strangled whisper, but he would recognize that voice under any circumstance.

Starsky lay stunned beneath him, nostrils flaring in fear or anger, maybe both, as the world’s bluest eyes – rich, dark, yet clear and pure – stared back at him in the dim light of dawn. Hutch watched as an array of emotions flitted through those wide eyes: horror, rage, disbelief?

He removed the knife and threw it across the room. A broad red bruise was already forming across the front of Starsky’s throat. Hutch let go of Starsky’s wrist and scrabbled to his feet – and promptly stepped on a small, round loaf of bread. He took another step back and squashed another. In fact, the floor was a bread minefield. One more step back and his calves hit the mattress. Now it was Hutch’s turn to say, “Ooof!” as he sat down hard and fast.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Starsky demanded hoarsely. He rolled over, rose on all fours, gave two harsh coughs, then was on his feet and backing away from the bed.

Hutch crushed the natural inclination to answer tone-with-tone and bite Starsky’s head off for sneaking up on him unannounced. But for all he knew, this world’s Starsky did this all the time, and this world’s Hutch liked the game of being stalked. But one look at the shocked and angry face told him he’d screwed up. Big-time.

“Starsky, I’m sor—” Hutch began, his second apology in under a week.

“Damned right you’re sorry!” Starsky cut him off. “You coulda killed me!” Hutch watched as he rubbed his throat once more. “What’s so wrong that you’re on high alert? Has one of our old perps pulled a jailbreak? Or has getting struck by lightning turned you into a homicidal maniac?”

Hutch was shocked by this last remark, recognizing there was some truth to it, and opened his mouth to answer, only to be cut off again.

“And since when do you sleep in the nude?” Starsky looked straight at Hutch’s groin, as if it were a murder weapon. “I’ve seen you too drunk to untie your shoes but still able to pull on a pair of boxers. What the hell, Hutch?” Evidently not done, he stalked over to where the dagger landed, just in front of the dresser, and snatched it up. “And who’s your edgy friend here? We’ve never met before, but I can tell you right now I don’t like his sharp sense of humor.”

Beset with questions, Hutch decided to answer one silently. He bent over and rooted through the pile of dirty clothes. Discarding yesterday’s boxers, he selected his cigarette-scented jeans. He pulled them on sitting down but stood to zip-up and button the fly. Avoiding Starsky’s eyes, he looked at the floor, where he spied the half-empty sack of bread and their worse-for-wear brethren scattered everywhere. Wordlessly, he crouched down to pick them up and placed them – even the two squashed ones – back in the bag. With the last one in hand, Starsky invaded his space, standing so close they could kiss, but Hutch didn’t see a hint of a pucker. Just a hard, grim line and narrowed eyes.

“I knew I should’ve come home sooner,” Starsky said, his voice low and a little gravelly from where Hutch hurt him, his fingers nervously handling the knife. “What’s wrong, babe? What’s got you so wound up you’re sleeping with a knife? If something’s got you spooked, why not put your magnum on the nightstand? I saw it hanging in its usual spot.”

Hutch deliberately – desperately, even – looked over Starsky’s shoulder in the general direction of the coat closet he couldn’t espy from this angle but knew he’d left standing half open. He’d hung the magnum there, plain as day for anyone to see, to grab, to use. “I’m glad it was you that got the drop on me,” Hutch mumbled at last, disappointed with himself. Fingers suddenly nerveless, he let the paper bag fall onto the mattress. “I could have killed ‘my’ partner on his first day back from vacation,” he told himself. “Good luck trying to complete your mission from prison.” But it was more than that, and he knew it.

His de facto partner took him by the elbow and led him to a kitchen chair, where Hutch promptly sat. Starsky crossed to the kitchen sink, dropped the knife on the counter beside it, filled a tumbler with water, chugged half of it, then topped it off again and brought it to Hutch. “Drink,” he ordered.

Hutch fumbled the glass to his lips, a little surprised to see a hint of a tremble. “Must be the pent-up adrenaline,” he thought as he purposely superimposed his lip over the ghostly imprint Starsky’s lip had left on the rim of the glass. Eyes still lowered, he watched as the mismatched chair closest to his own was pulled out and reversed. One jean-clad leg and a blue-and-white striped sneaker mounted the chair like Starsky was an experienced horseman. “Talk to me, Hutch. What’s going on in that blond-blintz brain of yours?”

“Man up,” Hutch ordered himself. He didn’t know exactly what he’d expected, meeting this other Starsky, but he certainly hadn’t expected a walking wet dream. This man’s hair was long, longer than his partner’s back home, by a good two inches. And totally tousled, like when Hutch’s Starsky had gone under-cover as a mentally impaired homeless man to catch a physician who was kidnapping skells and using them for unlicensed medical experiments. Turns out the doc had murdered the son of a senator – a skell, sure, but a legal one with a beggar’s license and a fully paid-up apartment to shelter in at night. But that’s where the resemblance to that disheveled undercover character ended.

This Starsky wore a too-tight jersey with alternating stripes of yellow and black over a pair of well-worn jeans that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. The blue shoes were a brand unfamiliar to Hutch, but they looked perfectly natural, like they were an integral part of this Starsky. His eyes were a little bloodshot, but the long trip and the early hour would account for that change. They were, however, just as wine-dark as his partner’s – a blue so startling deep that, when people met him for the first time, they often lost track of their conversation, ensnared by those too-blue orbs. Like Hutch was doing now.

“Earth to Hutchinson,” Starsky said, snapping his fingers in front of Hutch’s face. That broke the trance that held him. He reached out and snagged Starsky’s left hand with his right, holding it tight, but not too tight. Hutch brought their hands down slowly and laid them on his knee.

“I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did,” he said in a low, controlled tone, hoping it would be taken as sincerity, because this was as sincere as he could sound under these strange circumstances.

“It’s okay,” Starsky said. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

“Don’t lie,” Hutch told himself. “Just tell the right amount of the truth, then shut up.”

“I went to Huggy’s last night,” he said in answer. “Stayed out way later than I intended to. I’d only been in bed about an hour when you came calling. Speaking of which, why didn’t you call and tell me you were getting in early? I was supposed to pick you up.” “Good,” he thought. “That sounds reasonable.”

A chagrined look smoothed away some of the frown lines marring Starsky’s ruggedly handsome features. “I wanted to surprise you,” he said contritely.

“Now, that sounded sincerely sorry,” Hutch thought.

“But don’t go changing the subject,” Starsky continued more firmly. The lines around his mouth reappeared. “Why’d you try to kill me?”

“I didn’t think I was killing you!” Hutch growled, freeing Starsky’s hand.

“Who did you think you were killing?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Hutch said sarcastically. “Maybe a bunch of freaky Satanists, or some crooked cops, or a college professor too full of himself, or maybe a random serial killer, or possibly my own partner, who drives like a maniac.” He rattled off high-level details of some of their latest adventures, to see if they rang true. He silently berated himself for not going into the office to read over their case files. He knew he had to play this game a lot better a lot faster to avoid blowing his cover.

All of Starsky’s frown lines came back, but with the overlay of a tragedy mask. “Hey. I thought we talked that out. I didn’t know you were still sore about the accident.”

After a moment to take in an expression he’d never seen on his Starsky’s face, Hutch huffed out, “I’m not sore. I’m just mad at myself for hurting you. This week . . . it’s been weird here, you know? Guess I was missing my mush-brained partner.” There. That was the truth. And the strange part was that it wasn’t hard for Hutch to say it out loud, not to this Starsky who called him “babe” and could look sad and brought him . . . bread. Hutch got up and retrieved the paper sack he’d left on his bed.

“You think we can still eat these?” Hutch pulled a squashed one out of the bag and held it up like an evidence exhibit in court.

“I didn’t run the length of JFK with a bag of real New York bagels just to toss ’em in the trash,” Starsky said, even as he stood and snatched the bag of . . . bagels . . . from Hutch’s hand.

“Besides, I’m a big believer in the twenty-second rule.”

“What’s that?” Hutch asked, before he could stop himself. Starsky gave Hutch a look that plainly labeled him an idiot.

“How many times I gotta tell you that when you drop food, you can still eat it as long as you pick it up in under twenty seconds?” Starsky turned his back on Hutch, shaking his head in what looked like pity, and went to the toaster on the kitchen counter. Without looking back, he unsheathed the dagger that had nearly killed him and started cutting a bagel in half.

“Never seen this before,” Starsky said, briefly waving the knife in the air, before turning it on a second bagel. “Had it long?”

“I’ve had it a little while,” Hutch stated, thinking fast. “It’s good for fishing.”

“Yeah? Starsky said, rolling his shoulders forward.

It was a tell Hutch’s partner on his world had. Whenever he felt a perp was lying to him, Starsky’s face would get this totally scary-dreamy little smile and he would roll his shoulders. Hutch couldn’t see this Starsky’s face right now, but he would recognize that shoulder roll anywhere.

“He thinks I’m lying to him,” Hutch thought.

“Where’d you buy it?” Starsky asked. “The Fly Shop?”

It would be easy to say yes. Hutch had even visited The Fly Shop because it was on his list of outdoor stores. But those knives were utilitarian in all the wrong ways – humans didn’t have scales, so no need for a serrated edge. No, he’d found this knife in the collector’s case at the Army-Navy Surplus Store. The owner said a woman had sold it to him; her father had brought it home after World War II. The blade was nine inches long; the handle five inches. The knife was engraved with “M3-UG-1943” and was bisected by a small ring haft, which meant it would have a low profile when worn on his forearm or tucked in a boot. It reminded him of his Utica back home. The knife had seen some wear and tear, but it would still take a fine edge despite its obvious age. “No. I got it at the Army-Navy store on 7^th and Stratford.”

“Huh,” Starsky said, popping the first bagel into the toaster. “I’m gonna make coffee. Do you care if I make mine or do you want your fancy stuff?”

That explained why there were two kinds of coffee in the cupboard. “Yours is fine,” Hutch said. He didn’t know which one was “his” and which one was Starsky’s, but he would in a few minutes.

“This is going to be harder than I imagined,” Hutch thought. “We’ve been together for ten minutes and I’ve nearly blown it six ways from Sunday.”

Hutch watched Starsky put the percolator on the stove, carefully noting the brand of coffee he selected. Maxwell House. Exhibiting no sense of irony, Starsky buttered the bagel with the knife that had almost killed him that morning, put it on a plate, and placed it in front of Hutch.

“You want juice?”

“I’m out,” Hutch answered.

Starsky shook his head, as if he were disappointed by Hutch’s shopping habits.

He was slathering butter on the second bagel when the percolator’s “perking” sound became a continuous gurgle, telling Hutch the coffee was ready. There was only one clean cup on the draining board, so Starsky filled it to the brim and set it halfway between them. It was obvious to Hutch that Starsky intended for them to share the one coffee.

“They have to be lovers,” he thought. “What man shares the same cup with another man unless they’re fucking?”

“You got a bag of frozen peas?” asked Starsky.

“You want to put frozen peas on your bagel?”

“No, dummy,” Starsky said, exasperation self-evident. “I wanna put the bag of peas on my throat when I lie down. I’d like to avoid as much bruising as possible. Don’t want the cards from Vice down at the precinct accusing me of automotive asphyxiation.”

“Autoerotic asphyxiation,” Hutch automatically corrected.

“Whatever. I don’t need that kind of grief. So, you got some or not?”

“I’ve got a bag of corn nibblets. That’ll do the job,” Hutch said noncommittally, a pang stabbing his heart. He’d almost killed the guy, but he still made him breakfast. Even shared his coffee.

He’d almost finished his bagel when Hutch noticed Starsky studying his face.

“What?” Hutch asked.

“The cookie duster,” Starsky answered, his expression dubious.

“The what?”

“The mustache, dummy!”

“What about it?” Hutch grumbled, caught off guard by the unfamiliar “cookie duster” idiom.

“I’ve known you the better part of a decade and you’ve never had facial hair. Hell, when we were in the Academy, I didn’t even think you could grow facial hair, you were so baby smooth.”

Hutch felt his face heat with a blush – a sensation he’d never felt before but instinctively understood. “I’ll fucking wear a mustache anytime I want – and right now I want a fucking mustache! You got any problems with that, partner?”

“Nope. It’s fine,” Starsky answered, Pontius Pilot hands in the air. “Grow a beard, too. See if I care.”

They finished their breakfast in near silence – if the huge jaw-cracking yawns both of them took turns giving didn’t count.

“Man, I’m beat,” Starsky said at last.

“Me, too.” Hutch stared at the little smear of butter on Starsky’s top lip. If he were home, he’d just lean forward and lick it off.

“Let’s crash,” Starsky said. “Dobey’s not expecting us back at work until tomorrow at four.”

“Yeah,” Hutch agreed. “You can have the bed. I’ll take the couch.”

“You know, we could share the bed. We have a hundred times before,” Starsky said, sounding pensive.

Hutch wondered whether Starsky was asking him to sleep with him or fuck him. It seemed like his partner wanted one of those options, and the Gods above knew the man was beautiful, but Hutch thought better. This nice man – a stranger, really, no matter how much he looked like Starsky – wouldn’t consent to sleeping with Hutch if he knew who he really was. And if you can’t give consent, it’s rape, pure and simple. Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson was many things, but he wasn’t a rapist.

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Starsky looked disappointed, but in the end he nodded, toed off his shoes, went to the freezer, grabbed something from it, crossed to Hutch’s bed, placed what turned out to be the bag of frozen corn on his throat, and promptly drifted off to sleep.

Hutch didn’t even bother to make up the couch into a bed. He did wash his dagger, dried it, then sheathed it. Holding the knife at his side, he went to the sofa, stretched out, and pulled the cream-colored afghan off the back to curl under it. He secreted the knife among the cushions, unwilling – maybe unable – to break the habit of a lifetime.

He couldn’t be too careful.

“What are you afraid of?” Hutch’s voice of inner wisdom asked. “You think he’s going to get up and rape you?”

“No,” Hutch replied, sure of that in his bones, even on very short acquaintance. “He’s a good man.”

”Good in bed, I bet,” smirked the voice in his head.

“Not happening,” Hutch avowed, even as his cock stirred at the thought. “I’m on a mission. Got work to do. I’ll be keeping it in my pants.”

“For a whole year?” the inner voice whispered. “We’ll see.”

Hutch didn’t sleep for a long time, too distracted by the light sighs that passed for Starsky’s snoring, and unable to stop hearing the certitude of “we’ll see” echoing in his head.

Dave Starsky
5:15 P.M., Same Day

I wake up more than half-hard and don’t know if it’s just morning wood – I mean, afternoon wood – or if it’s the memories of fooling around in Hutch’s bed that’s got me rearing to go. I went to sleep in my clothes, being too tired to bother rooting around Hutch’s drawers of boxers and workout sweats, but as the day got warmer, I woke up long enough to strip down. And my bikini briefs ain’t gonna hide what I got going on. I listen for a moment and hear a very soft whistling sound that’s Hutch’s snore coming from the direction of the couch. That’s my starting gun. I race for the bathroom, lock the door, drop my drawers, and get in the shower.

It always takes a minute for Hutch’s water to heat up, but that helps me with my not-so-little problem.

Sure enough, a blast of ice-cold water takes care of business best undone, but as the water heats up it leads to another issue: I have to pee like a racehorse. Hutch is a good partner. How easy would it be for him to tease me about having a bladder the size of a grape? Too easy. But he caught me peeing down the drain in the communal showers at the police academy once and his frosty look let me know I was a barbarian. Then he called me a Hanna-Barberian to my face, making me feel less stupid, because being a Hanna-Barbera cartoon barbarian (get it?) is much better than being a real one. So that put paid to what I suppose, in retrospect, was a bad habit. I haven’t been able to pee in a shower since. But now I risk being called a barbarian if I get the bathroom all wet, ’cause I forgot to grab a towel, and the only thing I can use to dry off is Hutch’s robe, and he’ll bitch about that, too, when he finds it sopping wet, so what’s a guy to do?

Okay. I do a pretty good job of hitting the toilet all the way from the shower. Good thing the seat was up.

I finish washing up, squeegee most of the water off my body using my hands like blades, and tiptoe damply to the shelf that holds the towels. After drying myself, the floor, and the rim of the toilet, I throw the towel in the wash bin, brush my teeth, and take in the pale purple bruise just above my Adam’s apple. Damn. I really do look like I’ve been on a date with a rope. Nothing for it. I’ll just have to hide it ’til it’s better.

I walk clean and naked from the bathroom and straight into Hutch’s closet. Back when we were . . . dating? Experimenting? Fucking? (Nah. It was never fucking. We jerked each other off, sometimes rubbed one off on each other, but it was never full-blown fucking.) Together? Yeah. When we were together, I barely went home ’cause I was way too happy fooling around with Hutch at his place, so I kept some clothes over here. Now I just have to find ’em.

Just thinking about those four months is getting my engine revving again. I can’t see any of my stuff, so I rip a random pair of jeans off the shelf and pull them on and zip them up over my burgeoning boner. Take that, I tell my dick. And fuck it, these are Hutch’s jeans and they fit good enough, but they’re too long and I don’t care, and just then I finally spy my black turtleneck – at least I think it’s mine; Hutch has one, too – and I pull it on and tug up the neck. By touch alone, I can tell I’ve camouflaged the offending bruise.

I stomp out of the closet in these too-long jeans and head straight to the kitchen counter and pull open the junk drawer. This is where Hutch keeps his phone books, safety pins, rubber bands, packets of ancient soy sauce, and the scissors. I sit at the kitchen table and cut two inches off each leg, then use a fork to fray the edges, making the jeans look like I walked the bottoms off. Just then I hear signs of life from the couch and see one of Hutch’s pale hands come up and rub his eyes. I know I gotta hide the evidence. I scoop up the scraps of denim and thread, shove them to the bottom of the kitchen trash can, and artfully arrange some empty cereal box – the kind of cereal that looks like dirt and twigs – to block any chance of Hutch seeing even a hint of blue.

Before Hutch sits up, I’m back in my kitchen chair, munching on a cold bagel.

“Hey,” Hutch says, his voice sounding rusty with sleep. “Is that coffee still hot?”

“I doubt it,” I answer. “But I don’t mind making a fresh pot.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll just have a Coke.”

I watch Hutch struggle to sit up, obviously still half asleep, and take pity on him and get him a Coke from the fridge. By the time I fish the bottle opener from the cutlery drawer, Hutch has had time to take a leak and return to the living room. After he flops down on the couch, I hand him the soda bottle and sit down next to him.

He gives me a nod of thanks and tips his head back, taking one of those long drinks that you always see in the Coke commercials. Hell, Hutch is good-looking enough to be in a Coke commercial. His Adam’s apple bobs, and his long blond hair catches the low-hanging afternoon sunlight just right. He’s gorgeous enough to be a woman, even though he’s all man, I tell myself, not without a little longing. He drains half the bottle, wipes his mustache on the back of his left wrist, then offers me my turn at the bottle. It’s then I see it.

“What’s that?” I ask, trying not to sound bothered, but knowing I’m failing. I point to a fresh scab about the size of a quarter on the inner part of Hutch’s forearm.

“It’s a scab.”

“Har-dee-har, Detective Hutchinson,” I say. This time I’m gonna get a straight answer to my question.

“What happened? How did you get hurt?”

For a long beat, Hutch looks like a big blond animal caught in the headlights on a dark mountain road. A cloud chose that moment to cover the sun, plunging the apartment into shadow. The light went out in Hutch’s brilliant blue eyes as he gapes at me. “I-I d-don’t remember,” Hutch stammers at last, looking not lost or confused, like you might expect, but something else. Grim. Maybe angry. Not angry at me. Maybe angry at himself?

“The, ah, doctor said I could have some memory issues,” Hutch mumbles after a long pause.

Involuntarily, I feel my shoulders roll, independent of any thought on my part.

“Okay, buddy,” I answer after an equally long beat. “Why don’t you take a shower while I go pick us up some dinner?”

“Sounds good,” he says, relief easy to see if you know his face like I know his face. “Wha’cha getting?”

“Wait and be surprised,” I answer, suddenly feeling like I’m talking to a stranger. It’s Sunday night. When it’s not football season, Hutch always makes me watch 60 Minutes with him on Sunday nights; I only put up with it because I make him buy us expensive pizzas from Zaza’s Trattoria: a large New York pepperoni for me and a large deep-dish garden vegetable for him.

Hutch heads for the bathroom, and I put on my shoulder rig and jacket. I hear the shower turn on as I beat feet down the stairs. I’m confused. One minute, I’m sure Hutch is lying to me. The next minute, I’m genuinely convinced he doesn’t remember our Sunday night ritual.

It’s gonna be a weird week at work, I tell myself, worried, wondering if it’s even safe for Hutch to be on the streets.

Only one way to find out. . . .

 

Chapter VII: Insanus Saltator

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Monday, 5 September 1977, J.C.

Just as Dr. Franklin had said, his “slave” came to do my return-to-work physical. I just didn’t realize it would be at six in the morning. I’m still in my pajama pants as she takes my vitals, shines a light in my eyes, notes that my concussion is greatly improved, asks if my black eye is giving me any grief, which it isn’t, and I say as much. Then she asks me a series of cognitive questions – my date of birth, my rank, my address – the usual stuff you might expect when a medico is determining if you’re able to answer cogently. Then she asks me a question I can’t answer: “Who’s the current Emperor?”

I have no fucking idea.

“Carter,” I manage to say, eventually.

“Carterus is Proconsul of the United New World Provinces,” she corrects gently, her eyes lowered, as if she fears I’ll hit her for having the temerity to correct a free citizen.

And that was one of the things I’d learned last night, reading Starsky’s book with the green cover: A Concise History of the Empire. Slavery is an everyday thing – not like the pre-Civil War Antebellum South, but bona fide world-wide-I-need-a-mechanic-and-I’ll-just-go-down-to the-slave-market-and-buy-one-and-I-don’t-give-a-damn-about-race-or-skin-color-I-just-need-a-mechanic kind of slavery. Case in point: the young woman kneeling in front of me looks pure red-headed Scottish highlander, complete with a smattering of freckles across the pale skin of her nose.

“Giovanni Leone is Emperor, long may he reign,” she answers at last, almost robotically. “Who’s the Governor of the Province of California?” she queries carefully, and suddenly I feel like the biggest heel – I never even bothered to ask her name when I let her in.

“Brown,” I say, trying to sound confident.

“Yes,” she exclaims in obvious relief. “Jeraldus ‘Jerry’ Brown.”

I don’t know who feels more relief, me or her. Probably her.

At this she packs up her bag and stands to go. “I’ll tell Dr. Franklin you’re well enough for full release to duty,” she says as I walk her to the door.

And then I’m alone again, with nothing for company but heavy thoughts.

Last night, I couldn’t stop at the end of the forward I’d read, as per Starsky’s instructions. Instead, I’d kept going until my eyes shut involuntarily sometime after midnight. According to the book, the Roman Empire never fell. It only grew stronger after a decisive battle somewhere in Tuto-something “Germania” – probably what I think of as modern-day Germany. Which is crazy. I wouldn’t forget something like that. It just doesn’t make sense. If I don’t know basic world history, I’ve got something a lot more wrong with me than “a little memory loss.”

Nothing for it. I’ve got all day before it’s time for work, and I’m too tense to go back to sleep. Might as well keep reading and see if anything in this book feels authentic.

As fate would have it, a couple of hours later, while eating a bowl of cereal unfamiliar to me in name – Ceres’ Seven Grains – that nevertheless tastes an awful lot like Grape-nuts, my phone rings. With what Starsky might call his Spidey-sense – when he’s just come off a tear of reading comic books – something tells me I won’t be reporting to work at 4:00 p.m. today. Sure enough, it’s Captain Dobey.

“Simmons and Babcock have the flu,” he blusters. “So, move your blond butt, get to the station ASAP, and be prepared to work a double.”

“Okay, Cap.”

“And no need to call that partner of yours,” he says. “I’ve already rang his place and woke up his slow ass. He should be on route to your place shortly.”

Then he hangs up without even saying goodbye.

I walk back to the bedroom and begin rummaging around my closet, pulling out a set of clothes to wear. Nearly half the space is taken up by Starsky’s stuff: shirts and jackets I readily recognize, and jeans neatly stacked on the overhead shelf, unlink mine, which I keep on hangers. It’s funny. Maybe it’s just the thought of the could-be-Scottish nurse, but I feel a desire to wear my favorite blue plaid shirt . . . but I can’t find it. In fact, I can’t find a single one of my plaid shirts: spring, winter, summer, or fall.

Has someone stolen my clothes? I ask myself stupidly, instantly realizing it’s a crazy question. Anyone who broke into my place wouldn’t just help themselves to some old shirts; they’d look for jewelry, electronics, guns, and money. At the thought of money, I kneel beside the bed and feel under my mattress for the envelope of cash I keep hidden there. Yeah, I know, not the most original hiding place, but if someone breaks in, I want them to find the cash fast and not bust my place up looking for a stash the baddies have to assume is somewhere.

Damn it.

I stand up and flip the mattress off its frame. It hits the wall, knocking down a painting that should be my Dame au Chapeau picture instead of this Italian-themed landscape that I don’t remember owning. The saggy mattress slides down the wall and comes to rest halfway under my bed, but I don’t care. I keep three things under there and all of them are gone. For one long second, I’m tempted to do a mental fade. Like the one I had in the bathroom yesterday. Then, I remember my partner cleaning my clock and telling me to man up. So, now – now, I’m pissed. I’m pissed the envelope holding a thousand bucks of my hard-earned cash is gone. I’m pissed my other, more personal items are missing. But the fact that someone would take my cash and my stroke books and my fucking shirts is infuriating.

“What the Hell’s going on here?” I shout out loud, neighbors be damned.

Three loud knocks come through the wall I share with the guy in the apartment across the hall. I want to scream “fuck off” but mutter “stuff it” instead. My neighbor, Alejandro, is a nice guy, a graduate student enrolled in a business degree program that he’s working a night gig to pay for, and I’m sure he’s trying to get some well-earned sleep. He doesn’t need to hear me acting like the gorilla in the damned American Tourister commercial.

I yank an ice-blue t-shirt off its hanger, pull a random pair of khakis off another hanger, and end by grabbing an unfamiliar tan coat that looks a little like a safari jacket, just with far fewer pockets. I still feel clean from the “Starsky special,” which reminds me that I need to call a plumber. Still in my pajama pants, I stalk over to the junk drawer and get out my little black phonebook, only for every name and number I remember, there are two more I don’t recognize. I want to sit down and try to puzzle out who all these contacts are and what they mean to me, but I don’t have time. I cheat a glance at the clock – I’ve got maybe ten minutes before Starsky arrives and I haven’t dressed or even brushed my teeth, which I’ll have to do in the kitchen, given the state of my bathroom.

I’ve got to call the plumber, at least.

When I bought Venice Place, the old owner gave me the contact information for the building’s service contactors, and since I’d met them all over the last two years and they seemed friendly enough and competent enough, I’d kept them on. I’d entered their contacts in the back of my phonebook, which I flipped to now, looking for Gilman Plumbing and Heating. I found Gilmanus, instead, and just rolled with it. Whatever’s wrong with my head will have to fix itself soon, or I’m going to have to get used to feeling like Alice down the rabbit hole.

I dial the number and get Manny Gilman – fuck it, Gilmanus – on the third ring.

“Gilmanus Plumbing.”

“Gilly, it’s Ken Hutchinson, over at Venice Place—” I say, but I’m cut off mid-sentence.

“Of course, Detective Hutchinson! I remember you, sir. What can I do for you?”

“Um, I had a little accident in the bathroom,” I confess. “Knocked the sink off the wall, bent and cracked a pipe. In short, it’s a mess. When do you think you could come fix it?”

“I can come right now, sir, if that works for you,” Gilly answers politely.

Today? I’m astonished. The quickest I’ve ever been able to get Gilly to show up was a week, and that was by promising him a fifty-dollar bonus. I want to ask why he’s got the time to drop every appointment on his very busy schedule but decide not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Great! I’ll leave the key for my place on the lintel over the door.”

“Sure, sure,” Gilly says. “No problem. You want me to leave the keys inside when I’m done and slam-lock the door?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything else I can do while I’m there?” Gilly asks, sounding eager to please. “Maybe take a look at the AC?”

I think for a moment, and an idea comes to me.

“Hey, Gilly – how hard would it be to add a shower head in the sauna?”

“You want to add a shower, Detective?” Gilly asks, his voice sounding dubious. “You buying a slave? You don’t have to share your bathroom with a slave, sir. I can hook up an outdoor shower head in the back alley, no problem. I got a woodworker buddy who can box it in and put a lock on the door to keep the homeless from freeloading and running up your water bill.”

“No,” I protest, offended at the idea of owning a human being.

“Sorry, Detective,” Gilly says humbly. “I didn’t mean no disrespect. Sure, I can run a pipe off the sauna’s splash line, easy. I’ve got all the parts in my van. I can finish up before quitting time.”

“See that you do,” I answer curtly, still stinging from the notion I’d buy a person. “Send me the bill,” I say, before hanging up. Without saying goodbye, I notice. Huh. Starsky doesn’t say goodbye. Neither does Dobey. Maybe it’s rubbing off on me.

“Well—” I say out loud to myself and Cicero the cactus, “—when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Just then, I hear the familiar roar that can only be the Torino’s engine, and one sharp blat of the horn. I open the front sash and lean on the sill, body half out the window. Starsky wolf whistles at me. I can feel a blush heat my cheeks as I realize I’m half naked and draw half back into my apartment.

“I’ll be right down,” I yell over the sound of traffic.

“Yeah, I’ll be right here,” Starsky yells back, before picking up the newspaper from the dashboard.

I rush to get ready. Ready to meet a strange-to-me world.

As I get into the Torino, Starsky folds the newspaper neatly and hands it to me. Without a word or even making eye contact, he pulls smoothly into traffic.

“You had breakfast?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t. I’m gonna stop at Patron’s and get a peanut butter and jelly burrito. You wanna cup of coffee?”

“Sure,” I say.

I bury my head in the paper, only to be met with increasing weirdness. That’s not to say the usual stuff isn’t there – the weather, the comics (though the only one I recognize is Hägar the Horrible), the help wanted ads, the society section – but even the title is strange: The Acta Diurna (with the words The Daily Doings written in small print underneath it). I skim the other sections, like public assemblies, court cases (which I take the time to read), the sports section, with a full-color pullout advertising the next gladiatorial contests and chariot races (chariot races?), and then I see a section entitled “Upcoming Executions.” I wad up the paper and toss it in the back seat.

“Hey,” Starsky protests. “I wasn’t done with that.”

“Well,” I say stiffly, “I am.”

Starsky harumphs me before adding, “And don’t mess up my car. You can treat your hunk-o-junk like a trash compactor, but my wheels are a work of art.”

“Whatever,” I grump. This normal exchange between me and Starsky bleeds off some of the tension inspired by the paper. Regardless of what’s happened to my brain, some things still seem right.

Well, right until Starsky asks his next question.

“You want to talk about last night?”

Do I?

“Do you?” I ask.

“Not particularly,” Starsky answers, his tone laconic. “But I figure we’ll have to talk about it sooner or later. Might as well make it sooner.”

“Let’s make it later,” I say. This wins me a frown. “I’m not saying we won’t talk. I’ve just got a lot going on in my head, and I don’t need one more thing – an important thing, okay? – on my mind while I’m trying to get back into the swing of things at work.”

The frown recedes. Starsky shoots a quick glance my way, as if checking to see if I’m being straight with him. He must be satisfied because he gives me a small grin. “Put some music on, will you?”

I find a middle-of-the-road rock station and turn it up loud enough to discourage chit-chat.

I’m downing the last sip of my coffee and Starsky is licking the jelly from his fingers as we walk into the bullpen. We’re greeted by a very loud, very sarcastic voice I would know anywhere.

“Well, look at that,” Dryden announces, his voice dripping sarcasm, just as he exits Dobey’s office. “Castor and Pollux have decided to grace us with their presence. You boys been on a fucking vacation or on vacation fucking?”

“Hi, Cassius,” Starsky says with a toothy grin, not even missing a beat. “Where’s your butt-buddy, Brutus? He on vacation, too, but forget to take you?”

“Yeah,” I pile on. “You guys on the outs?”

“Can it, you two,” Dobey growls. “Get in my office for a briefing. We just caught a body and I’m sending you clowns down to Skyway Drive near the old reservoir to investigate.”

Starsky and I both give Dryden fake smiles and the wiggly-fingers wave before he turns and stomps out.

We’ve barely settled into our seats in Dobey’s office before Starsky’s bearding the lion in its den.

“What did that asshole from IA want, Cap’n?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Dobey answers civilly at first. “He was here to ask me about my dues for the Fraternal Brotherhood of None of Your Damned Business.”

Starsky takes a sudden interest in the ceiling, and I open my mouth to say something to draw some of the heat off my partner when Dobey turns and points two fingers at me like a make-believe gun. “And you can shut yo’ mouth, babyface, ’cause you don’t have anything to say that I want to hear!”

My answer is to half-raise my hands, as if I’m being mugged.

There’s a knock from Dobey’s hallway door and I’m glad for the interruption.

“Come in!” Dobey is loud enough to rattle the door on its hinge, and I give an involuntary wince.

A nebbish-looking guy who looks like he could stand to get a little sunlight pauses in the doorway. “Captain Dobey?”

“I said ‘come in,’ didn’t I?”

“Yes, sir,” Nebbish says before introducing himself. “I’m Sergeant Harding, from Missing Persons. I got a message to pull all my jackets for the last three months and report to Captain Dobey.”

“Three weeks ago, your Carol Sanders missing person case became our homicide case,” Dobey rumbles, waving a hand in the general direction of the third office chair in the corner. Harding obediently pulls it up next to me before setting his case files on the corner of the desk.

“I had the lab boys on the scene courier over some Polaroids of the girl found this morning,” Dobey continues, shifting his focus to Starsky and me. “But I told them not to move her body until you two had a chance to see the scene with your own eyes.”

The captain hands Harding a folder, and it’s easy to look over his shoulder to see the photo of the dead girl, as neatly composed as if she were sleeping. But ten years on the force had taught me a thing or two about recognizing bodies. This beautiful, dark-haired girl was fresh but nevertheless dead.

“Yeah, I got a file on this one,” Harding answers immediately. “Name of Lori Parkins. Call came in late last night. Normally, I make ’em wait the required twenty-four hours, but this girl had gone missing from Fever, just like the last one. I sent a black and white to the mother’s house to pick up a family photo so I could send out an accurate bolo.” He pulls what looks like a college graduation picture out of a thin file folder and lays it side by side with the Polaroid from the lab.

“No doubt about it,” Starsky says, looking over my shoulder. “It’s the same girl.”

“What in Hades is Fever?” Dobey asks.

“It’s a disco near the Street of the Metalworkers,” Starsky says promptly. I shoot him a glance, as if to say, “How do you know that off the top of your head?” He shrugs in answer.

“I would call it a coincidence,” Harding says. “Except for this.” He holds up a Polaroid of today’s dead girl’s ankle. There’s a shiny gold bracelet with the name SHARON engraved in it. “This girl was found with an ankle bracelet identical to the one found on Sanders.” He pulls out a close-up photo of the Sanders girl’s ankle. “See,” he says, holding the photos up together. “SHARON engraved in big bold letters.”

“Hand the Sanders and Parkins files to my men and get back to your station,” Dobey orders Harding, who stands, prior to giving a weird salute where he bring his fist to his chest then shoots his arm out straight ahead. “Vale, Captain,” Hardling says formally, then sketches a nod in my and Starsky’s direction and says, less formally, “Vale” before letting himself out the same way he came in.

“Two dead girls in less than a month, Cap,” I say, musing over the photos. “He’s not a normal pattern killer – not with this little down time between incidents.”

“You think you’re telling me something I don’t know?”

I wince in response as my ears take a beating. It’s starting to look like Dobey has only two volumes today – loud and louder.

“Me and Hutch better motor, Cap,” Starsky suggests, the files in his hands. “In this heat, she’ll start to go off fast. The least we can do is to make sure she’s presentable at her funeral feast.”

“Fine,” Dobey grunts. “Just be ready to go undercover at this Fever joint tonight. If we’re lucky, maybe you can catch the killer before he strikes again. Now get outta here, you bozos.”

My ears are thankful that Dobey says this last with a wave of his hand, as if he’s shooing flies. Starsky stands, gives the same weird salute that Harding gave, and turns to leave via the bullpen door. I’m right on his heels when Dobey barks my name loud enough to make me wince.

“Hutchinson! When did you get too uppity to salute your commanding office?”

Starsky turns, catches my gaze, and squints his eyes into the “do something” position. I turn around and, feeling crazily self-conscious, do my best to ape the salute I’ve seen performed. Dobey’s frown holds me on station for several beats of my heart, then he says, “What else, Hutchinson?”

There’s something else? How should I know?

I quickly replay the last few minutes in my head, then it comes to me. “Vale, sir.”

“Don’t be thinking you’re too pretty to be strung up for five lashes, Hutchinson,” Dobey growls, then returns his attention to the files on his desk. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”

“No, sir,” I reply, putting every ounce of seriousness I can muster into my voice. “Thank you, sir.”

“Now get outta here,” Dobey repeats, seemingly mollified. “But keep me posted.”

Starsky and I both echo, “Yes, sir,” and get the hell out of our boss’ office before something worse happens.

David Michahèl Starsky
30 Minutes Later, Same Day

“Okay,” Starsky said firmly as he drove them towards Skyway Drive. “Lesson Number One: always salute and vale Dobey and any superior officer before you jet from the scene. Got that?”

“Can he really deal out lashes?” Hutch asked. “Like in some old pirate movie?”

“Are you kidding me?” Starsky answered, trying and failing to keep the incredulity from his voice. “That’s the least he can do. He broke my pinky finger the first week I worked for him for being too fresh-mouthed. Told me to be grateful it wasn’t my trigger finger.”

“Were you?”

“What?”

“Were you grateful?” Hutch asked, his voice serious.

“Damned right I was! That kind of injury could’ve screwed up my wet work.”

“I don’t know any of this,” Hutch said, his voice confessorial. “Have . . . have I ever been . . . punished by Dobey?”

“You’re joking, right?” Starsky’s voice was brighter. “You’re the division’s golden boy. No lashes, no torture, not even a write-up in your personnel file. You fly though your periodic IA interviews.” He cheated a glance in his partner’s direction and was glad to see something like relief there. “You do any of the reading last night after I left?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said. “I skimmed our most recent case files, and they all seemed familiar to me. Hector Salidas—”

“—Salidus,” Starsky corrected on autopilot.

“I remember Salidas,” Hutch said after a moment’s hesitation. “But you’re right – the casefile said Salidus; I just wasn’t tuned in.”

“Hutch,” Starsky said, his voice serious. “You’ve got to tune in. Stay frosty. Be at the top of your game. Or you’re gonna get us both killed.” From the corner of his eye, he saw Hutch grimace. “What about our other cases? Did you remember them?”

“I remember you going undercover as a cabbie to smoke out a serial killer. Lionel Fitzgerald the Second almost killed you in that alley.”

Starsky could feel Hutch’s eyes skimming him, looking for injuries as if the incident had just happened.

“Not my best moment—” he started, only to be cut off by Hutch.

“You were injured, dummy! You did the right thing – put space between you and the killer.”

“Looking back, it felt like a race of cripples,” Starsky said, his grin lopsided. “Then this blond God swooped in like an avenging dimachaerus.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Hutch asked, his exasperation readily evident. “Dimachaerus?”

“By all Gods living, dead, and yet to be born,” Starsky thought. “Hutch doesn’t even remember what a dimachaerus is!”

“It’s your favorite type of gladiator – mine, too, for what it’s worth,” he explained, trying to sound at ease, wanting to pour some soothing oil on the roiling waters of Hutch’s temper. “They fight with weapons in each hand, with swords, but you came in with your knife and your gun drawn. I was seeing triple, so you looked really loaded for bear. You saved me, Hutch, from the humiliation of being killed by an aged club-footed actor. I’d’ve been the laughingstock of the precinct.”

“Dimachaerus – that’s Latin,” Hutch stated.

“Lingua Latinia all the way,” Starsky said. “Except for the old schoolers who say ‘Lingua Romana.’ I had it doubly tough as a kid – I took Latin, and I had to go to Hebrew school.”

“I took a semester of Latin in junior high,” Hutch said, sounding thoughtful. “But I wasn’t very good at it. My father made me pick Spanish after that, saying I couldn’t screw up my grades or I’d never get into a good college.”

“That doesn’t sound like your Pops. Sounds more like your Mother.”

“Pops?” Hutch sounded indignant to Starsky’s ears. “What’s this with this ‘Pops’ shit? You’ve never even met my family!”

“I hang out with him and the rest of your family every year over Saturnalia,” Starsky answered, mystified. “Depending on our work schedule, they either come here, or we go visit them in Duluth.”

“Does . . . does he know about us?”

“Of course, he knows about us!” Starsky answered, getting a little pissed. “Everyone knows about us! We’re in in the fucking Sacred Band. You think that was an easy achievement, or have you fucking forgot that, too?”

Starsky watched Hutch hunch down in the car seat. Watched his right hand come up to massage both his temples simultaneously. “Gods damn it!” he thought. “We’ve barely been on the job an hour and I’m already freaking him out.”

“Hey,” Starsky said, his tone the most conciliatory it’d ever been in his entire life. “Forget what I just said. I’m being an ass. This is hour one, day one. Together, we’re gonna get you up to speed, okay? Just . . . just don’t ask anybody but me questions like that. In fact, I suggest you put your tall, blond, and broody face on and try to avoid talking to other cops as much as you can, at least until we’ve had a chance to get you boned up. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” Hutch grunted in reply, his facial expression already flat and grim. Even a quick glance showed that Hutch’s “I think wrink” between his brows was canyon deep.

Starsky darted his gaze back to the road.

“Perfect. Keep that face on for the rest of the day,” he advised. “And here we are, Skyway Drive. I see the morgue wagon waiting for us. Let’s get this over with so we can plan our undercover personas for tonight.”

“What’s to plan?” Hutch asked, a bit too haughty for Starsky’s liking. “We’re after some sort of disco maniac. We put on some date-night clothes, drink light beers, and look for a creep who doesn’t seem to like women until closing time.”

“Okay,” Starsky said neutrally. It wasn’t like Hutch to unilaterally decide their undercover play – Hutch knew it was one of his partner’s favorite parts of the job, and usually let him take the lead on backstories, costumes, how they knew each other, or even if they knew each other. But Starsky couldn’t deny that Hutch’s plan, though simple, was sound. He decided to let Hutch’s uncharacteristic bossy-ness slide since he was taking a sensible approach to the job, which is what Starsky needed him to do more than anything at that moment.

Starsky parked next to the morgue wagon and pulled out his notebook. He noted that Hutch didn’t even bother mirroring his actions. Instead, his partner got out of the car, ignored the forensics slaves, and loped towards the body, his shoulders tense and his face looking like death warmed up.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
18 Hours Later

We’re powering our way in the Torino towards the suspected killer’s house. It just came over the radio that the latest vic, Michelle Brady, has been found. But our comrade-in-arms and de facto partner, policewoman Lizzy Thorpe, has been missing from the disco since 11:00 p.m. the night before. My gut tells me we don’t have much time, as Tony Mariposa’s killing schedule has accelerated beyond much hope of finding Lizzy alive.

We get to Mariposa’s estate – palace, really – and hammer on the front door. But there doesn’t appear to be anyone home, which is strange. Rich guys like this typically have a large staff, maids, a chef, a butler, someone whose job it is to answer the damned door, even when he’s not home. A chill runs through my blood. The only reason no one’s here is almost certainly because Mariposa uses the house as his killing ground. No matter how hard we knock, no one answers.

“There’s a car here,” I note, pointing my chin at the Mercedes in the large carport.

“It can hold three cars,” Starsky says. “If something happened here, I think we missed it.”

“Why do so many assholes own Mercs?” I ask, just for something to say to distract me from my feelings of disappointment and dread.

“Merc!” Starsky blurts out, snapping his fingers.

“Yeah. That’s what I said.”

“M-E-R!” Starsky spells out. “The clue Lizzy left us! She was trying to spell Mercedes!”

“God, I hope you’re right,” I say, drawing my gun. We’re going to break into an extremely rich guy’s house, without a warrant, based on three letters of the alphabet. But I don’t care, and Starsky doesn’t seem to care either, as we race each other up the palazzo’s stairs. We head to the side of the house, knowing the front door is locked and gated. But we quickly find a side door lacking a metal gate and I kick it in. We backtrack down the hallway to the front entrance on instinct alone and find ourselves in a massive entryway made entirely of marble, and not the cheap kind. It’s the colored, expensive stuff you see in history books of old castles – just not in real life.

I nod to the stairs leading to the second floor and Starsky flashes me a thumbs up before heading deeper into the house. But I call him back with a hiss and hold up my hand for silence. I can feel the thump-thump-thump of dance music through my feet. Can hear it, though muffled, coming upwards from the lower level. I speed down the stairs I’ve half climbed and meet Starsky at the bottom. It only takes a minute to find a doorway that thrums with the beat of disco music.

This door isn’t locked, so we sneak in, hoping to catch the perp off guard, which we do. He’s standing in the middle of the floor, his face buried in Lizzy’s thick hair, completely oblivious to everything around him. Starsky grabs Lizzy while I grab Mariposa and cuff him. I watch as, a moment later, Lizzy pushes herself out of Starsky’s arms and visibly composes herself.

“Let me take it, guys,” she says, white-faced, still trembling, but now from adrenaline, not fear. “I’m only two merits away from promotion to Sergeant Second Class, then I can say goodbye to the pussy posse forever. If I never have to see another horny conventioneer again in my life, I’ll die a happy woman.”

“What are you talking about?” I protest.

“We caught him red-handed in the henhouse, Hutch,” Starsky answers me matter-of-factly. “No sense wasting taxpayers’ money on a trial for a capital crime. Not when the chief witnesses are three cops.” Starsky steps closer, whispers in my ear, his breath stirring the long hair there. “You’d know this if you hadn’t been fried in the desert. Now shut up and get with the program.”

“Hey, Hutch,” Lizzy says. “You don’t mind giving me the collar, right?”

“No,” I say softly when I realize she misunderstood the nature of Starsky’s whispered instructions. “I don’t mind.”

“Let’s do it in the cell,” Starsky suggests. “The bed will make for some lurid pictures.”

“No, let’s do it right here, on the dance floor, where it’ll be easy for the forensics slaves to clean up,” she says, indicating the red-and-white-colored tiles.

“Ah, Lizzy,” Starsky chides. “Putting others first.”

“Hold him for me, fellas,” she says, even as she puts her foot in the back of Tony’s right knee, forcing him to kneel. “I want this to be clean. Nothing for IA to bitch about.”

Mariposa seems to be in shock. Hell, for that matter, I feel like I’m in shock, going through the motions of a nightmare reality. She’s really going to shoot this man in cold blood, and the only thing she’s worried about is how to make it easier to mop up the mess.

Lizzy lifts Mariposa’s .38 pistol from the waistband of his slacks and presses it against the base of his skull. Starsky and I each have a grip on one shoulder. She’s starting to squeeze the trigger when I say, “Wait a minute.”

“What’re you on about, Hutch?” Starsky grouses. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Yes,” Lizzy agrees. “Let’s do it and put in our paperwork so I can meet my kid at the bus stop after school.”

“I j-just—” I’m stammering, searching for anything to say that might stop this . . . execution. “I just want to hear if he has any last words,” I improvise, at last. Maybe, just maybe, if this guy cries or pleads for his life, or blames his tragic childhood, or does anything vaguely human, maybe Lizzy and Starsky will see him as something other than a token towards promotion.

“Last words?” Starsky asks, brows disappearing into his hairline. “Sure, Hutch, whatever you say.”

I look at Lizzy and she nods her assent, but her face is just as confused as Starsky’s.

I go to one knee beside the perp. Sink my fingers into his short curly hair. Lift his head. “What do you have to say for yourself, Tony? Why’d you do it? Hurt all those women?”

Mariposa knows the score better than I do. He simply says, “When you dance, you gotta pay the band.” He looks over his shoulder at Lizzy. “Pull the trigger, Sharon, like you shoulda done all those years ago.”

“No problem,” Lizzy says, and complies.

I guess she doesn’t care about getting blood all over me. Guess she figures the slaves down at my cleaners will have no trouble getting the gore out.

 

 

INCIDENT REPORT NO.: BC78-90015722-A-9-99

DATE: 6 SEPTEMBER 1978

BACKGROUND: THREE CLIENTS OF THE FEVER DISCO WERE MURDERED OVER A SPAN OF FOUR WEEKS. MAJOR CRIMES DETECTIVE DIVISION SUSPECTS A SERIAL KILLER, WHO GIFTS HIS VICTIMS POST-MORTEM WITH A GOLD BRACELET INSCRIBED WITH THE NAME “SHARON,” IS USING THE DISCO AS HIS HUNTING GROUND.

ASSIGNMENT: TASK THREE UNDERCOVERS TO INFLITRATE THE DISCO TO IDENTIFY AND STOP THE KILLER OPERATING THERE.

SUMMARY OF THE INCIDENT: SUSPECT TONY MARIPOSA DRUGGED THE NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE OF UNDERCOVER SERGEANT THIRD CLASS LIZZY THORPE ON THE EVENING IN QUESTION AT APPPROXIMATELY 2130 HOURS. SUBJECT SUBSEQUENTLY LEFT THE DANCE HALL AND SECRETED HIMSELF IN OFFICER THORPE’S CAR, LOCATED IN THE PARKING GARAGE OF THE ESTABLISHMENT. hE THEN PROCEEDED TO KIDNAP THORPE WHEN SHE RETURNED TO HER CAR. SUBJECT TRANSPROTED THORPE TO HIS HOME AT 14 HARRINGTON LANE, WHERE HE IMPRISONED THORPE IN A BASEMENT BEDROOM. NOTE; THE BASEMENT WAS DECORATED TO RESEMBLE A DISCO.

SUBJECT WAS ARMED WITH A .38 CALIBER REVOLVER, WHICH HE USED TO COERCE THE SERGEANT TO CHANGE CLOTHES AND PERFROM LEWD DANCES WITH HIM. AS MARIPOSA WAS PREPARING TO KILL SERGEANT THORPE, SERGEANT FIRST CLASS DAVID STARSKY AND SERGEANT FIRST CLASS KENNETH HUTCHINSON ENTERED THE BASEMENT AND ASSISTED OFFICER THORPE IN CAPTURING MARIPOSA.

AFTER-ACTION NARRATIVE: SUBJECT WAS CUFFED BUT, GIVEN THE NATURE OF MARIPOS’A CRIMES, OFFICERS ON GROUND EXECUTED A 9-99, PERFORMED BY OFFICER THORPE. ALL APPROPRIATE PERSONNEL–INCLUDING BOTH CAPTAINS OF THE OFFICERS, THE WATCH CENTURIAN, THE PRAETOR ON CALL FROM THE CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, AND A DUTY OFFICER FROM INTERNAL AFFAIRS–WERE CONTACTED AND DISPATCHED TO THE SCENE (SEE ATTACHED SIGNATURE SHEET). ALL AGREED THIS WAS A JUSTIFIABLE 9-99 (OFFICER-INVOLVED SHOOTING–UNARMED SUSPECT DEAD).

CASE DISPOSITION:

CLOSED

BAY CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT / / FOR OFFICIAL UPPF USE ONLY

 

Four Hours Later, Same Day

We filed our paperwork and we’re in the Torino, heading to my place, when Starsky asks, “What’s wrong with you, Hutch?”

I can’t miss the irritation evident in his voice, though I can tell he’s trying to mask it.

“What do you think?” I ask. I’m mad and I don’t care if he knows it. “I’m an accessory to murder.”

For just a moment, those dark crystal eyes, mere slits, shoot in my direction, but they’re back on the road quickly. My hands are still trembling slightly, but I can see Starsky’s rest lightly, expertly, on the wheel.

“Me, you, and Lizzy did our duty,” he says in a quiet voice, his tone reasonable. “We did nothing illegal.”

“What happened to due process?” I snap.

“Mariposa got due process. What do you think all our captains, the DA, and IA were talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I hiss, staring at the bloodstains that dot my sleeves. It took me twenty minutes to get the blood off my face, my skin singing by the time I was done. I scrubbed and scrubbed at the locker room sink, unwilling to share the communal sauna with twenty other cops who wanted to gossip about our case. “He should’ve had a trial.”

Again, I get that side-eyed glance from Starsky. “Do you honestly think he was innocent?”

“Of course not! That’s not the point.” I’m so angry, I lash out at Starsky and punch him on the shoulder. Starsky responds by punching me in the thigh with his right hand, the left still deft on the wheel.

“What’s wrong with you, Hutch?” he says, his voice barely perturbed. “Are we playing Punch-Buggy or having a serious conversation here?”

“Cops aren’t supposed to be vigilantes!”

“Who do you think we are – the Committee?” Starsky asks. “One of our biggest busts was taking down IA’s Lieutenant Fargo and his merry band of assholes: Knight, Willams, and all the rest. That case got us both awarded Silver Stars, medals of valor, and we were featured in the papers.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t kill them, now, did we?”

“If by that, you mean, did we shoot ’em dead at the scene of the crime? Then, no. We did not.” Starsky’s voice hardens for the first time since we’d gotten in the car. “But we killed ’em just the same, Hutch. We were there when they were crucified, right in front of the Hall of Justicia. It took Fargo four days to die. Could we have 9-99 ’em? No, we could not. It was just me and you who witnessed that crime. We needed a third cop and we just didn’t have it. Did Knight and Williams wish we’d shot ’em dead at the scene? Damned right they did. Don’t you remember them begging us to do that as the nails were being pounded in?”

“Pull over,” I gasp around my gorge. Starsky’s quick as a snake and is gliding into an empty parking spot in seconds, but I end up vomiting coffee and bile into my lap anyway. Without any hesitation, he passes me a wad of napkins and is pulling back out into traffic.

“Let’s get you home and cleaned up,” he says quietly.

At first, I take a stab at daubing at the vomit. But my white jeans have soaked up most of it. Ultimately, I just spread the napkins over my thighs, like a morgue sheet over a dead body.

“Starsk. I-I can’t remember any of this.”

“I know.”

“What’re we going to do?”

There’s a long pause and I think he’s not going to answer. Then he says, “I kept my copy of the Police Academy Handbook. I’ll drill you. Get you up to speed.”

“If there’s much more like Code 9-99, I’m not sure I want to know.”

For the third time, Starsky gives me the side eye, but this time he holds it for a moment before flicking his gaze back to the road. “What do you remember about Iron Mike, Hutch?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said: ‘What do you remember about Iron Mike?’”

“We were working a case with him,” I say uneasily. “At first, we thought he was on the take. But it turns out his relationship with Matt Coyle was a lot more complicated than that. I guess it didn’t matter in the end, though. Perp shot him in the line of duty.”

“Yeah. That’s what the official report says. But what really happened to Iron Mike?”

“What do you mean, ‘what really happened?’”

“You shot him. Dead as Julius Caesar. We’ve been working off his book for the last year. We’re unstoppable, Blondie. No one has an arrest record like us. And all because you had the cojones to take out Iron Mike.”

“I didn’t kill Iron Mike!” I protest. “We respected him. Both of us. And admired him! Hell, we were even a little afraid of him. He was one tough cop.”

“You got that right. And just because you respect and admire someone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t kill ’em. Most of the time it means you should – the killer inherits all that respect and power and fear. It’s one of the reasons I don’t worry about you too much when I’m out doing wet work. My partner knows how to take care of himself. He’s no babe in the woods. Shouldn’t be, at least.”

I feel a pang when Starsky says “babe” like it’s an insult rather than the affectionate nickname – the love-name – I remember. That feeling is real. The love we have, even when we’re not sleeping together, is real.

This isn’t my life. I don’t know what or how or why, but something has happened. And I’ve got to find a way to fix it or I’m going to lose my mind.

 

Chapter 8:
Discomania and The Game

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Friday, September 15, 1978, A.D.

“So far, so good,” Hutch thought, sitting at ease across from Starsky, working on a report.

A week ago, he’d written his first report on this world. Unconsciously, he’d typed it in all capitals, the summary of his case notes regarding Tony Mariposa’s tactics, techniques, and procedures for what the local papers were calling “The Discomania Killer.” After he’d handcuffed the perp, he’d been shocked, at first, that they hadn’t 9-99’ed Mariposa on the spot. Hutch was just about to suggest it when he bit back the words. Even on short acquaintance, Hutch admired the abilities of both Earth II Starsky and Lizzy Thorpe. It was obvious they were dedicated professionals. If they didn’t suggest a 9-99, there must be a reason for it, unique to this place and time.

“Watch, learn, and live,” Hutch had told himself. The only slip-up he’d made so far was turning in the all-caps report on Mariposa. Dobey had told him gruffly, “If your typewriter is broken, requisition a new one. This is like reading the world’s longest headline.”

“The typewriter is fine, Cap’n,” Starsky tattled, something his partner back home would have never done. Oh, he’d play a prank in a heartbeat – like soaking the typewriter ribbon in vinegar so that it typed fine at first, but then you could barely read the report once the ink dried an hour later – but he was closed mouthed when it came to his partner and the brass. “Hutch is ‘experimenting’ in speed typing,” this Starsky had said. “He says all those lowercase letters slow him down.”

“Well, Cap, as you can see,” Hutch said, “I’m done. Slowpoke over there isn’t even off the first paragraph.”

Dobey leaned forward to examine the output on Starsky’s typewriter. “Humph,” he grunted. “I guess I can make an exception for your little experiment if it leads to efficiency.”

Starsky, who’d changed position and was standing behind Dobey, stuck his tongue out at me.

“Thanks, Cap,” Hutch said with a big smile meant to piss off Starsky. “I’ll keep up the good work.”

Dobey shot a glance over his shoulder and Starsky pulled in his tongue – just in the nick of time. “Don’t lay it on too thick, Hutchinson. It’s still weird, but I’ll get used to it.”

Once Dobey was back in his office and behind a closed door, Starsky snapped, “See? Even the Captain thinks you’re weird. And so’s that mustache. When is it coming off? It makes you look like a rhinestone cowboy.”

“And I make that look good,” Hutch answered. “And I’ll grow a mustache on my ass if I want to, Starsk. We’ve discussed this before. Leave it alone.”

“Whatever,” Starsky said.

All that was a week ago. They’d spent the time since then working on their backlog and had made great progress, closing two cases. But it had necessitated a lot of footwork and old-fashioned knocking on doors, talking to potential witnesses.

Now, finally, Friday night had arrived, and they had the entire weekend off. Hutch put the final touch on the report he’d been working on, followed up by a sip of his favorite canned soup – clam chowder, the second one of the day – before heading down to the locker room with Starsky before clocking out.

He’d just finished washing up when Starsky decided to continue their earlier conversation, which ended with them finalizing the rules to their impromptu game of hide-and-seek.

Hutch could tell that Starsky was singularly unimpressed. “I’ll have you wrapped up by tomorrow night, chump,” Starsky said, leaning against his locker, toothbrush in hand. “I’ve done my homework for seven years. I know how, where, and when you eat, walk, sleep, and talk, and who you know, what you know, and how you know it. Ain’t no hiding behind that.”

Now this – this was the Starsky Hutch was used to. Arrogant. Confident. Glib. If this were his Starsky, he’d be more worried about this little contest. But this Starsky didn’t know who he was really up against. He didn’t know that this version of his partner was a master of disguise. Hutch not only had no intention of being tagged out; he also planned to rub his skills directly in this Starsky’s oh-so-handsome face, show this Starsky, once and for all, that he was the one who got away. Defeated him. Showed him who was the boss.

“This Starsky doesn’t stand a chance,” Hutch thought.

Dave Starsky
Sunday, September 17, 1978, A.D.

“What’s going on with you two?”

I’m not paying attention and have to ask Dobey to repeat himself. I’m too wrapped up watching Hutch through the little glass window in the hospital room door while the nurses got him comfortable in bed. After nearly five hours in the emergency room, two shots of antitoxin, and three bags of IV fluids, they’d ultimately decided he was stable enough to be admitted to a room.

“I said—” Dobey says with more heat and venom in his tone, “—what’s going on with you two? You’ve both been prickly since you got back from New York.”

“You’ve noticed?” I ask, my voice sounding defeated, even to my own ears.

“No, I haven’t noticed a damned thing,” Dobey sasses back. “They let anyone who walks in out of the cotton fields be a captain of police detectives.”

I nod in answer. I know that Cap still has good observational skills and situational awareness. Then I spy movement through the wired slit of glass: a nurse steps back, done with the bed bath, and I can see Hutch’s pale face, only I don’t see the composed and clean one in front of me: I see him in the passenger seat of Ray’s Pardee’s clunker of a ride – weak, barely breathing, blood leaking from his mouth, his face seamed with dirt and pain.

“Well,” Dobey says. “What’s got you two on the outs?”

“Why do you ask?” I mumble, wishing Cap would go home and leave me here to wait by myself until I’m allowed in to see Hutch.

“Because my two best detectives are acting like truant middle schoolers! This hide-and-seek game was stupid, and you know it.”

He’s right, I think, wondering why I thought it was so important to one-up Hutch. He’s just been so damned distant and cocky lately, which is rubbing me all the wrong ways. But I don’t tell Dobey this. I can’t. Instead, I just shrug. “I know now it was stupid. Guess I knew before we started, too. It won’t happen again, Cap.”

“See that it doesn’t!” Dobey wonders off, probably to find a snack machine, but I call out to him. “Why don’t you go home, Cap? I got this.”

Dobey looks at me suspiciously, then something inside him seems to relent. “Don’t stay here all night. I expect you to report to work on time. If the doctors decide to release Hutch tomorrow during your shift, I’ll send a black and white to pick him up and take him home. Do I make myself clear?”

“As a bell,” I say, meaning it. Dobey nods, shuffles over to pick his coat up off the plastic chair in the hall, then gives me a nod and is gone. Of course, I don’t intend to leave Hutch’s side until I’m satisfied he’s okay. It won’t be the first all-nighter I’ve pulled followed by a day shift.

Turns out Hutch wasn’t released the next day, or the next, or even the one after that. I knew botulism was some heavy stuff, but I didn’t know how heavy until Dr. Franklin came in and laid it out for us.

“Any nerve damage you suffered will be permanent,” Franklin tells us grimly.

I’ve been sitting by Hutch’s hospital bed since I got off work, just resting my hand on his knee through the sheet.

“How do you determine what nerves have been damaged?” Hutch asks, his voice low, intense.

“I have you scheduled for a series of electrodiagnostic studies tomorrow,” Frankin answers. “The tests use electricity to evaluate nerve function. The first test is called nerve conduction. It’ll be followed by an electromyography exam. These tests measure how quickly electrical signals travel along nerves, Detective, and will help me identify nerve damage or dysfunction.”

“It’s not bad enough that I get struck by lightning,” Hutch grouses, but I can tell his heart isn’t in it. “Now I’ve got you lighting me up like a parade float.”

“I’d have said Christmas tree,” I butt in, “since you look a lot more like a fir than a float.”

Franklin gives a small smile, but the corners of Hutch’s lips turn down. I hate that mustache. It’s getting shaggy and just starting to cover his front lip. I know I’m trying – and failing – to divert my thoughts and Hutch’s. It just never occurred to me this whole clam chowder-Ray Pardee thing could be a permanent disability. What’ll I do if Hutch can’t work the streets no more? What if he can’t even hold a desk job?

“What’s my prognosis, Doc?” Hutch asks.

“I’ll know more tomorrow,” Franklin says, taking off his glasses and polishing them with a handkerchief he pulls from his white coat pocket. “But I’m cautiously optimistic.”

“That’s great,” I exclaim, happy, gripping Hutch’s knee tighter.

“Why?” Hutch asks. “Why ‘cautiously optimistic?’”

“Why?” Franklin repeats, putting his glasses back on and returning his hankie to his pocket. “It’s that very same lightning strike. If you were overly susceptible to nerve damage, I think you wouldn’t have made such a swift and complete recovery. Now, botulism works differently, blocking the transmission of acetylcholine – the chemical that tells your muscles to contract. When you came into the ER, your breathing was labored but your oxygen levels remained high. We never had to put you on a ventilator, which is a breathing machine. So, yes, you were in bad shape, but not nearly as bad as you would’ve been in another six hours.”

“Good thing I lost the game,” Hutch mutters.

“You didn’t lose nothing,” I counter. “I had to cheat to find you. I’d’ve never threatened Ernie Silvers if you hadn’t been dying. I’d’ve tried to buy him off, sure, but I wouldn’t have put the fear of God in him like I did. And I wouldn’t have pushed my way into Pardee’s girlfriend’s apartment without a warrant if I couldn’t have found you any other way.”

“I’m not quite sure what you gentlemen are referring to—” Franklin states dubiously.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Yeah,” Hutch says. “It’s an inside joke.”

“All joking aside, gentlemen,” Franklin continues, “you’re very fortunate we have an ample supply of the HBAT antitoxin, which is the primary treatment for adults. It neutralizes all seven known botulinum toxin serotypes.” Dr. Franklin lays his hand on Hutch’s shoulder. “In whatever manner your partner found you, Detective, you’re a very lucky man. My best guess is that you’re going to be just fine. But I’m not paid by Memorial to guess – thus, tomorrow’s tests. After the tests, we’ll know a lot more about your condition.”

“And about when I can go home?” Hutch asks.

“And about when you can go home,” Franklin agrees. With that, the doctor sketches a nod that’s meant for both of us and exits the room, for which I’m very grateful. Why? Because I feel my throat closing up and my eyes start to prickle. I root around in my jacket pockets, searching by feel for a tissue or a napkin – Hell, even a lottery slip – anything I can use to daub my eyes before Hutch notices.

Hutch notices.

He hands me the box of tissues that’s on his hospital tray table, and I babble something about pollen and allergies. I wipe my eyes, blow my nose, and get ahold of myself. I get up and drop the wadded-up tissues in the trash can near the foot of the bed to give me a few more seconds before I have to face Hutch.

It’s when I sit back down that I see the terrifically strange expression on his face.

“What?” I ask.

“I’ve never seen a grown man cry,” Hutch whispers.

“Sure you have,” I remind him, having forgotten – for a moment – that Hutch is still having memory problems related to his experience with Mother Nature’s electricity. “There was that time with me and you crying over Terry as we played the world’s longest game of Monopoly on the kitchen floor. And again when we’d just discovered Gillian. And don’t forget my ‘allergy attack’ when I found you at the bottom of a canyon pinned under your crappy car.”

“I remember – I remember most of that,” Hutch says slowly, his face still strange.

“That’s good,” I say.

“Do you know what else would be good?” Hutch asks.

“Tell me.”

“Burger, fries, and a Frosty. I know it’s farther out. But go to Wendy’s. The crappy burgers at McDonald’s are made of earthworms,” Hutch says.

“No way,” I say.

“Way,” Hutch answers. “And I swear if you bring back McDonald’s, I’m going to get out of this bed and kick your ass.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I sass back, already shrugging into my jacket. “You and what army?” Of course, if Hutch wants Wendy’s I’ll get him Wendy’s. Even though it’s a longer drive.

And then I take a minute to think about what I’ve just said. You and what army. I haven’t said that since high school. What the hell is wrong with me? Not even an hour has passed since Dobey essentially told me to grow up. And here I am acting like a sixteen-year-old punk. Grow up!

“You want a Coke or a Dr. Pepper?” I ask, giving Hutch’s knee a goodbye squeeze.

“Surprise me.”

“Surprised you will be.”

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
One Hour and Twenty Minutes Later

The detritus of the burgers and fries they’d wolfed down littered the hospital table. Hutch gave a burp that tasted like Dr. Pepper and brought his fist to his sternum. For a moment, he was reminded of the Empire’s salute – something that had no meaning here, on this other Earth.

While Starsky had fetched their dinner, Hutch did some thinking. This Starsky was so very like his own back home, yet so different. Tears! Actual tears were shed over him! He reeled at the thought of any man crying. But Starsky? Even this ersatz one? There was more going on than met the eye, and Hutch was determined to get to the bottom of it.

It was time to get down to brass tacks.

Starsky was busy scraping up the last bite of his chocolate Frosty when Hutch asked, “Starsk, do you love me?”

The doubletake was almost comical. It was as though Hutch had said the sky was polka dotted, or palm trees grew on the moon. “Of course, you big lummox,” Starsky said after a moment, obviously catching his breath. “We’ve been partners forever. Can you imagine how hard it would be to train-up a new one to replace you? Nightmare!” He gave an exaggerated shudder.

“Stop bullshitting,” Hutch said, serious as a heart attack. “I’m asking you a solemn question. Do. You. Love. Me?”

“Do you love me?” Starsky sang aloud, and the tune sounded familiar, but the words Hutch knew for this tune weren’t the same. Maybe it was something from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

“Stop with the musical theater,” Hutch ordered. “I’m not in the mood for kiddie antics. Answer the fucking question or get out.”

The silly grin faded from Starsky’s face, replaced by one awash with some emotion that Hutch couldn’t identify immediately. Lust? Yes, there was something of lust present, but there was something more. Longing? Yes, longing. Hutch knew what longing felt like. What it looked like, too, having seen it in the mirror. He’d quietly pined for his partner for months before he’d mustered the courage to do something about it. When he’d made his move on his Starsky, it was almost as if the man were relieved. The flash of triumph mixed with joy that had raced across the rugged features was gone so fast that if Hutch had blinked, he would’ve missed it. But he’d seen it. Joy! And that joy was what gave him hope that, someday, his Starsky could come to love him, not see their relationship as just fucking under the auspices of their Theban vow. A convenient way to keep a competent partner and get a leg over, too.

Now Hutch knew what Starsky’s answer would be.

“Of course I love you.”

“Then why aren’t we together?” Hutch asked.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Starsky answered, his voice a mixture of defiance and pain. “One week we’re celebrating Christmas, the next we’re kissing in the New Year, then you’re dating what’s-her-name and giving her your thing-ah-mah-jig, and there ain’t any Valentine’s Day for us.”

That made no sense to Hutch. “If this world’s Hutchinson is anything like me,” he thought, “he’d kill to keep his Starsky. There’s got to be more to the story.”

He remembered his interrogation training. His methods were often more effective than Starsky’s rough-and-ready style. He decided to wait Starsky out.

The moment stretched. Turned into a minute. Then two. At last, Starsky shattered the silence.

“I think you broke up with me ’cause you wanted to screw me and I didn’t want to be screwed.”

“That’s a stupid reason,” Hutch answered without pause. “And I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t break up with you just because you wouldn’t let me get between your legs. What’s the real reason?”

“If you’re so smart, Detective Hutchinson,” Starsky barked, “why don’t you tell me?”

“I don’t remember,” Hutch lied, but it was a lie of necessity. He wasn’t this Starsky’s Hutch. He didn’t know why his other self would reject this walking wet dream. He knew there was nothing that could break his bond with his Starsky; even the fact that his Starsky didn’t love him back wasn’t enough to make Hutch leave. “But I think you know more than you’re saying.”

“Yeah? Well, that makes two of us.” Starsky pushed his chair back with a chalkboard-esque scrape, hurriedly shrugged into his jacket, and headed towards the door. “I’ll come by tomorrow after work. Leave a message with dispatch if you need me to bring you anything.”

With those words still bouncing off the ceiling tiles, Starsky was gone.

And Hutch was left with a mystery wrapped up in a mission. And he expected to succeed at both: discover why these two boneheads from Earth II weren’t together and find where in Hades Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator was hiding – then take him out.

 

Chapter IX: Ludus

David Michaèl Starsky
Province of California, Bay City
Thursday, 15 September 1978, J.C.

“Nice of the captain to give us a three-day weekend, especially given how much time we’ve had off lately,” Hutch said as they walked across the precinct parking lot, wending their way between black and whites, heading in the direction of the Torino.

“‘Nice?’ Not a word I’ve ever heard associated with Dobey,” Starsky snorted. “Pick up Ray Pardee freshly escaped from jail, then solve three murders in three days, and you get a three-day weekend, is more my guess.” He gave a huge yawn. “All I wanna do to sleep and fuck and eat and sleep some more,” he said laconically. “Not necessarily in that order.” He cheated a sideways glance at Hutch, who he could tell was pretending not to notice that he was checking him out. Starsky was willing to bet Hutch was remembering their last abortive attempt at sex. He’d been waiting patiently for Hutch to get his head back in the game at work before he brought up the subject of the horizontal bop again. And damn it, Hutch had been doing so well – until the 9-99. Luckily, Lizzy had rolled with Hutch’s weirdness, only knowing him from this case, grateful not just for the rescue but for the collar.

“We gotta get back on the horse sometime,” Starsky thought, “and my dick is hoping it’s today.”

They arrived at the Torino and Starsky unlocked his door. “Can I crash at your place tonight?” he asked across the car, exuding casualness.

“Sure, why not?” Hutch said readily. “I’ll scramble us some eggs. Then we can get some shuteye. Does that sound good?”

“Yeah,” Starsky answered. “Sounds real nice.” Ignoring the “nice” word that had slipped out again, Starsky got in the car, reached over to unlock the passenger door, then backed out of the parking spot.

Traffic was light, so they made Venicia Plaza in good time. As always, everyone in the neighborhood knew to leave them a parking spot, and if one of the restaurants got a new customer who wasn’t in the know, they made sure to have a dishwasher valet the car out back, just to be safe.

“We had a nice afternoon,” Starsky thought. Huh. There was that word again – nice. He didn’t even know it was in his vocabulary until today. But it had been nice, sitting quietly across from Hutch as they typed up their reports, the boar’s head bank standing guard between them.

They schlepped up the stairs and Starsky watched as Hutch scraped the key for his apartment off the lintel.

“How many times do I gotta tell you not to leave your key there?” Starsky groused, trying to keep the heat from his voice but knowing he was failing. “One of these nights you’re gonna come home and find one of your fellow cops waiting to ambush you. Do you really want everyone beneath you to move up in rank like that?”

“Everyone is too afraid of you,” Hutch answered without so much as a blink. “Kill me and they have to kill you, too. And from what I hear,” he continued, replacing the key over the door jamb, “everyone thinks you’re too tough to die.”

“A lion can be killed by a clan of hyenas,” Starsky said laconically. “We’ve both seen it in the arena.”

He waited until Hutch had entered his apartment before he got up on his tiptoes and snagged the key off the lintel. His crazy partner might trust Fortuna to keep him safe, but he preferred to minimize risk and keep his gun close to hand. He’d replace the key when they left the apartment. For now, it could live in his jacket pocket.

Like he promised, Hutch made them eggs, but he didn’t just scramble them. He made crêpes, the first batch filled with ham, mushrooms, spinach, and cheese, and the second stuffed with bananas, strawberries, and whipped cream, drizzled with chocolate sauce.

“I thought you said you were gonna scramble some eggs.”

“Well, you seem to think I’m the latest Julia Chi–Puer,” Hutch stumbled, “so, I’ve been looking through the cookbook. This looked like the easiest thing to make.”

“You know,” Starsky said around a huge mouthful of totally fucking tasty food, “we could have just gone to the crêpe place downstairs.”

“Nah,” said Hutch, looking down at his plate, before casting a glance up at Starsky. “I wanted to be alone, just me and thee. I’d’ve had to share you with the waitress if we’d eaten out. You flirt like a fiend, no matter where I take you.”

“Huh,” Starsky thought. “Hutch doesn’t like sharing me. And that’s okay. I don’t like sharing him, either.”

Starsky could feel something stirring in his stomach that wasn’t food. It was belonging. He liked that Hutch belonged to him. But, by the same token, that must mean he belonged to Hutch. Before the accident, before Hutch’s memory problems, such a thought would have pissed him off. Starsky belonged to himself. He was no man’s thrall, much less a slave to love. But since the accident, Hutch had been more open. Vulnerable, maybe? No, not vulnerable. He was still a badass with a hand cannon, like when they were outside Fever and that Travolta clone, Martinus, had tried to take a cheap shot at Starsky. Hutch had shut him down, handled the punk like he was a paper doll, slammed him into the cinder-block wall like it was nothing. Starsky remembered his cock stirring in his slacks, impressed that his man was so protective, so fucking capable.

“Hey,” Starsky said, “you know the flirting don’t mean nothing, right? It’s kinda like you and Sweet Alice – just something to do while waiting for your drinks or food.”

He noted the troubled look that knotted Hutch’s brow. “You remember Sweet Alice, right?”

“Yeah, I know her,” Hutch answered, then shut up.

Starsky let it go, not particularly wanting to talk about everybody’s favorite pleasure slave at this moment, but he made a mental note to circle back later and see what about Sweet Alice was bothering Hutch.

Starsky collected their plates and utensils, and it was only fair that he wash them, since Hutch had done the cooking. “I got this. Go clean up and I’ll meet you in bed.”

Hutch nodded, no hesitation evident.

By the time Starsky’d finished the dishes, his partner – dressed only in his old robe – was noodling about the bedroom, turning back the covers. Starsky took his turn in the bathroom and performed a quick washup at the sink, noting that it was whole and back on the wall. He couldn’t believe it had been two weeks since he was last there. But he’d been giving Hutch space without him in it, giving Hutch time to read their case files, study the police handbook, and – based on the grilling every day on their way to work – Hutch was a diligent student. Knew the answers to all his questions, chapter and verse.

Starsky exited the bathroom, dressed only in a towel, which he promptly dropped on the floor beside Hutch’s ratty robe before sliding nude between the sheets. He was glad to see that Hutch had his magnum on his nightstand. As always, Starsky’s baretta was on the other nightstand. A quick swipe of his hand revealed by touch that his dagger and Hutch’s were under their pillows, where they belonged. Encouraged that his partner – with the exception of the Gods-be-damned apartment key – was taking sensible precautions again, Starsky rolled onto his side and faced his lover. The bedside lamps were off, but Starsky had intentionally left the light on in the kitchen; he enjoyed making out in the light. Why not? Hutch was beautiful, by any standard, and only more so since the accident. He looked leaner, a little more feral, and even though he sometimes missed the mustache, Starsky had to admit there was some appeal to the smooth-shaven lip. What had Dobey called him? Babyface! Well, his man was no babyface, but he did look younger without the ’stache. Starsky’s cock was already firming up as his eyes drank in the masculine loveliness his partner embodied. Starsky noted that Hutch lay quietly, his eyes seeming to search Starsky’s face.

Starsky brought his hand up slowly, allowing a gentle fingertip to stroke Hutch’s cheek. “You in the mood?”

“Not for anything too heavy,” Hutch answered, his voice a combination of cautious and breathy.

“I can go light and easy,” Starsky promised. “And I’ll do all the work. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They were both tired, and Starsky knew this wasn’t the time for a lengthy seduction. “Akach otech legan adan,” he whispered in Hebrew.

“That’s Greek to me,” Hutch whispered back.

Starsky leaned forward and briefly nuzzled Hutch’s neck, careful that his five o’clock shadow didn’t abrade the thin flesh there. “If Hebrew isn’t your jive,” Starsky murmured into Hutch’s hair, “how about a little Latin?” He rooted through the golden strands until he found the tender earlobe. Starsky gently caught it between his teeth, mock-threateningly, then planted a little kiss on the tidbit. “Te in caelum feram.”

“It’s still Greek to me.”

Hutch’s perfect lips were so temptingly close. In all their years together, Starsky had never kissed Hutch tenderly. Not because he didn’t want to, but rather because he was afraid he’d never stop once he started. It was so much easier to pretend theirs was a sacred relationship based on their Theban vow, not because he actually worshipped his partner. And it was oh-so-important to make sure their parasitic coworkers saw their relationship as binding but not loving. Binding, the reason being that Starsky wanted everyone in the precinct and on the street to know that Hutch was his . . . and anyone who so much as harmed a hair on his sun-kissed head would soon find themselves missing their own head.

Another impediment to taking those gorgeous lips and eating Hutch alive was the cool aura of reserve that Hutch radiated. How often had that smooth and breezy voice given him shit about protection stones (what he thought of as his own pet rock – a good luck talisman if there ever was one, ’cause who was more loyal than a pet?), his flashy ride, even his lack of a collegium degree? Starsky gave back as good as he got, but sometimes he just wanted to gather Hutch up in his arms and tell him, in no uncertain terms, exactly how he felt.

But he couldn’t do that . . . could he?

Would it be so bad, especially since Hutch was recovering from his memory issues, if Starsky tried to kiss him? Keep it light, just in case Hutch rejected a gentle smooch. Yeah. Instead of mashing their mouths together in battle, clashing their teeth, sucking Hutch’s tongue like it was a little phallus that needed to be taught its place, even biting the inner skin of the beautiful bottom lip and making it bleed . . . what would it be like to simply enjoy Hutch? Why did love have to be a battlefield, too, when so much of their lives was combat?

“But what if he rejects my kiss?” Starsky asked himself. “Mocks me? Asks me if I’ve gone soft?”

His quick mind supplied the answer: when all else failed, lie your ass off. Given how much his partner didn’t remember – like their little game of “no” – playing a simple kiss off as one more item on the grocery list of the forgotten would be no hard stretch.

That could work. Forget could. Starsky was a man who carved his own destiny. He would make it work.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Hutch whispered. “What’re you thinking about?”

Starsky leaned forward, just enough for his lips to brush Hutch’s. “This,” he purred, and gently covered Hutch’s mouth with his own. He pulled back so he could whisper clearly, “I . . . will take you . . . to paradise.” Each pause was punctuated with a little kiss.

Starsky watched as the fair lashes lowered, screening the most beautiful eyes in his world. Baby blue didn’t begin to describe them, but it would have to do. Starsky was a lover and a fighter, but he wasn’t a poet. Leave it to Hutch to come up with some fancy word like “bejeweled” or “cerule-something.” Starsky was just a man in love but, sadly, one who worked with and around some very dangerous men.

“This is a bad idea,” Starsky’s secret heart screamed, but it was yelling into a void. Having tasted forbidden fruit, he intended to get full value for his soul.

He stroked his left hand down Hutch’s arm. Traced the long fingers with his fingertips, then reached further back to cup one lean, firm butt cheek. Holding Hutch on station, Starsky slid his pelvis closer to his partner’s, close enough for their stiffening cocks to caress each other, just like their lips. Instead of shoving his tongue, past any objection, down Hutch’s throat, he stroked his tongue tip across his lover’s teeth, politely asking entrance instead of demanding it. Hutch let him in with a sigh that could only be described as contented. Contented – and hungry.

Starsky felt a big hand sink into his curls, cradle the back of his head, press him forward. Felt Hutch open his mouth, inviting Starsky to take what was freely offered, to pillage with abandon. Felt the fully erect cock jump eagerly, the cudgeled head nudging his own cock, inspiring it to fully engorge. Normally, that would be more than enough to get his motor running. Tonight, though. . . .

Tonight was for lovers, not warriors.

Starsky trailed his fingertip over the firm flesh of Hutch’s fine ass, caressed the bow of his pelvis. His partner moaned breathily and shivered. Starsky deepened this kiss, but tenderly. Oh, so tenderly. He rested his hand for a moment on Hutch’s hip; this would be the moment when, normally, he would press his thumb deeply into the valley of Hutch’s Apollo’s girdle, producing just enough pain to inspire a hiss, not a growl. This time he lightly traced the line of muscle. Hutch trembled and moaned again, the sound more urgent if the gentle thrust he gave was any indication.

“Starsk, you’re killing me here,” Hutch gasped.

Starsky swallowed those words, made them part of him. They often played rough in bed. No matter how rough, he’d never heard Hutch utter such a confession. He’d never imagined that “light and easy” was the best way to make his stoic partner cry uncle.

But tonight was not for pain or killing or anything except, maybe, the piercing cry of Cupid’s arrow striking home. “If only!” Starsky thought. Unbeknownst to Hutch, Starsky would alternately stop at the sidewalk shrines to Cupid or Fortuna on the way to pick him up for work, offering his pinch of sandalwood incense for love and luck.

Tonight, his gifts to the Gods were paying off.

And tonight, Hutch’s heartbeat inspired the great vein in that long, lush neck to throb in tune with it. He panted, his eyes totally blown. One tiny crystal bead of sweat dotted his forehead.

Now was the time for Starsky to make good on his promise of light and easy.

He took both cocks in his left hand, firmly but not brutally. Three milking strokes and he knew he had enough pre-come to ease the way between them; whatever he managed to harvest from Hutch would be a bonus. He collected his fluid, then capped the head of Hutch’s cock with his palm. Lightly, he edged the mushroomed flesh.

Hutch gulped and pulled Starsky closer, his fingers digging into the base of his skull and deepening the kiss, as if he sought to swallow Starsky whole.

Starsky didn’t resist; he simply stopped kissing Hutch. With a groan of what sounded like pure frustration, Hutch let him go – but only for an instant. His strong right hand snaked down between them and captured Starsky’s cock, but before Hutch could get down to business, his questing fingers were gently pried away, one-by-one. When he tried the maneuver again, Starsky shushed him, gentled him down using voice alone.

“I said I’d do the work, remember?”

“I’m dying, Starsk,” Hutch whimpered breathlessly, sounding like he’d just run down a fit young perp.

“Only a little death,” Starsky whispered back.

Hand now adequately lubricated, Starsky gathered their hard cocks together. He lightly stroked them both, noticing for the first time how thin the skin was that covered all that steel. “I’m a jackass,” he thought, remembering the many instances he’d gripped Hutch’s rod cruelly, treating it like a piece of furniture instead of the delicately skinned shaft it was. The thought that he’d probably hurt Hutch without even knowing it made his heart sink. When Hutch wanted to be hurt, that was okay, and Starsky was willing to give that to him. But just randomly? Without thought?

“What is my fucking problem?” he wondered, hoping it wasn’t too late to make up for past mistakes.

He moved his hand slowly, methodically. Hutch’s cock jumped eagerly in that firm grasp, but Starsky was in no hurry to get either one of them to the finish line. His lips returned to Hutch’s eager mouth and, once again, Hutch tried to eat him alive. But each time he grew frantic, Starsky’s hand would cease its stroking motion. Eyes tightly shut, Hutch’s arm encircled Starsky’s back, crushing their chests close.

“That’s right, Hutch,” Starsky praised. “Grab on tight to me. I’ve got you.”

Each stroke now brought forth a moan of pleasure that Starsky drank down eagerly, even as his lips continued to devour his partner’s. He was close to coming, but he could tell Hutch was closer. Starsky pulled his head back, and Hutch’s eyes sprang open. “Give me everything you got, babe,” he begged. “I’m right here, waiting for it.”

Starsky couldn’t see their cocks – Hutch was holding him far too tight for that – but he could feel the pearlescent fire spill over his hand, coating his cock, even reaching as far as his stomach, so powerful was Hutch’s orgasm. Hutch groaned as if in pain, or maybe that was just what he sounded like when he was coming and was happy with how he’d been treated. Not simply fucking but making actual love.

The long-sought dream of true love, and the feel of his lover’s hot come bathing every inch of flesh it touched, inspired Starsky’s cock to join the party. It was his turn to gasp and moan and paint their bellies with the outward expression of his innermost desires.

For a moment, both men remained as still as a statuary group. Then Hutch’s arm released him and Starsky let go of their shrinking dicks. As if they were being choreographed, they flopped onto their backs simultaneously, cooling come forgotten, panting in the aftermath of what had to be – in Starsky’s case, certainly – the orgasm of a lifetime. Suddenly invigorated, he sat up, went to his knees, and straddled his partner. He bent to kiss the irresistible lips and murmured, “Gods, I love you, Hutch,” then sat up to behold the golden beauty that was his partner.

Arms stretched out, almost as if he were being crucified, Hutch smiled up at him, his white teeth a bright spot in the shadow that Starsky cast, the kitchen light being at his back. Then the smile faded. Vanished. Hutch’s face was just a sketch in the dim room, but Starsky could clearly hear the sorrow in the clear voice.

“Starsk?”

“Hmm?”

“How come we’re together?”

“What in Hades do you mean?” Starsky didn’t think he was going to like where this was going.

“I-I remember breaking things off with you. I was, uh, afraid that word would get out about us. That people – cops – would be disgusted, refuse to provide us with backup.” Hutch’s right hand reached up to stroke Starsky’s chest. It felt so good, even as Hutch’s words scorched his heart.

“You broke up with me?” Starsky choked out.

“I remember th-thinking,” Hutch stumbled along, “that if something happened to you, I couldn’t handle it. That I’d rather lose you, if that meant I got to keep you. Does any of this sound familiar? Does any of this make sense?”

Starsky felt the familiar fire of anger begin coursing through his veins. He looked down at the mattress and noticed Hutch’s left arm wasn’t in shadow. Starsky could see the pale limb in all its perfection.

Perfection.

He leapt out of bed, strode into the bathroom, and retrieved the handcuffs from the back pocket of not only his jeans but from Hutch’s jeans, too. Starsky stalked back to bed, as if the Kindly One were on his heels, and, in one practiced move, cuffed the right wrist of a very surprised Hutch to the brass headboard.

Hutch barely had time to gasp “wha—?” before the second wrist and both ankles were cuffed and locked in place.

Starsky planted his knees astride Hutch’s lean waist. “Everyone else in the department has that scar on their left arm. Except me and you,” he ground out. “I was out of town. What’s your excuse? Huh? Tell me.”

The baretta was scooped off the nightstand and out of its holster in a flash, knowing that – for Hutch – the opening of the barrel would look big enough to fall into. Then Starsky pressed the cold steel under Hutch’s jaw, digging into bone, clashing the man’s teeth together.

No longer in the mood to show mercy, Starsky pressed his face close to Hutch’s. So close. He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring on the exhale. “You smell like him.” He pressed his mouth to Hutch’s, sucked in the bottom lip, then bit it, a drop of blood dripping over Hutch’s chin and down his throat. Starsky watched the tiny cup between Hutch’s collarbones fill with gore, then bent so his tongue could lap at it. “You taste like him, too.” He sat back, pinning Hutch to the bed as he racked the slide on his pistol, chambering a live round, before grinding the barrel under the chin of the man beneath him.

“Us.” Starsky was so enraged he was shaking. “How come you d-don’t remember us?”

But he didn’t give this stranger who looked like his partner time to answer.

“I don’t know who you are, but you ain’t my Hutch. So, we’re gonna play a game. It’s one where I cut your fingers off, one at a time, until you tell me what you’ve done with him. And then I’m gonna go get him if I have to burn down half of Bay City to do it.”

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
A Moment Later

“Us. How come you d-don’t remember us?”

Starsky’s lips are moving, but I can barely comprehend what he’s saying. All I can do is watch, astonished, arms outstretched, held in place by our handcuffs. He’s so close. Then he picks up his pistol. Fear consumes me. He stabs the barrel into my jaw, causing my chattering teeth to clash together. At least it shuts them up. Then I have, for lack of a better word, an epiphany, and it leaves me dumbstruck. From the moment I woke up in the hospital, this man who’s now pinning me down has been saying there’s something wrong with me. And I believed him. Why wouldn’t I believe my partner and best friend? But . . . but what if it’s the other way around? Because I’m pretty fucking sure that there’s something wrong with everything and everyone except for me – including the guy who’s been insisting he’s David Starsky: Police Detective Sergeant First Class, former Legionnaire of the Third Cohort of the Ninth, and government assassin.

For one eternal moment, I’m reminded of my father. I remember the time he’d come home elated, consumed with pride at winning a difficult case for a prominent client. “The only thing better than winning this case would be arguing before the Supreme Court,” he’d said.

My mother pretended she was talking to me, but she was really talking through me: “Supreme Court! Your father’s just a smooth talker, Kenneth. It’s his worst attribute. You won’t walk down that road.”

No need to worry about that, Mother, I’d thought but dared not say aloud. I can barely testify in court without stuttering.

It’s the thunderous clocking of a live round being chambered that brings me out of myself, yet those clotted lashes completely hold my attention – until Starsky threatens to cut off my fingers.

Threatens? Promises!

You’d better channel your father, I advise myself, or you’re going to end up in an unmarked grave, put there by your—!

In a flash, something crystalizes within me.

“Starsk, you’re right. I am Ken Hutchinson. Hutch to my friends. But you aren’t my Starsky and I’m not your Hutch. Something . . . something I can’t explain . . . has happened. This isn’t my life. And we’ve got to find a way to fix it or . . . maybe, I don’t know . . . we’ll never see our true partners again.”

“Bullshit,” Starsky grinds out between clenched teeth, the word dragging, elongated. He digs his Smith and Wesson under my chin, but I don’t struggle. I hold those sorrowful blue eyes with my own, sure he’ll pull the trigger.

“Think about it, please,” I say, as clearly as I can around the semi-automatic pressed into my flesh. “You’re right. I am Hutch. Just not your Hutch.”

“Imposter,” Starsky hisses. “A plant. Put here to spy on me.”

“Someone set to spy on you would be briefed. Know everything about you. Your life. Your world,” I argued gently. “I would have plastic surgery scars. In my hairline. Behind my ears. But you know I don’t.

“Why would someone send a bumbling idiot who doesn’t even know what a dimachaerus is?” I continue. “Especially if they’re your favorite fighters in the arena? The arena! Starsky, that kind of thing stopped 2,000 years ago where I . . . where I come from. Nothing is right here. I c-can’t explain it, but I don’t belong wherever this is.” I see that Starsky is listening to me, his brow knitted like Rodin’s The Thinker. But his piece doesn’t waver.

“Even though you don’t know me, you do know me, just like I know you. Can’t you feel it, deep inside? Damnit, Starsky, wouldn’t a spy be better at his job than me? I’m just a cop, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t you know someone – anyone – who could explain this crazy mix-up?”

Starsky finally lowers his piece, the weapon angled safely down, towards the mattress. He pulls the slide back firmly and locks it open. The live round pops out of the ejection port. I watch the round arc upwards, reach its apogee, then clatter to the floor.

“Yeah,” Starsky says deliberately. “I do know someone who could – might – be able to pull off something weird like this. I think I’ll cut his fingers off instead until I get the answers I’m looking for.”

 

Chapter 10:
The Sound of Silence

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Thursday, November 10, 1978, A.D.

Hutch had settled into his role and, so far, the only one with even a whiff of suspicion was his de facto partner. There’d been no fights, no formal accusations, but their chit chat at work had lessened steadily as he ramped up a verbal shield of stinging jokes and tiny deprecations. And while they still spent some time hanging out after work – he couldn’t stop that completely or he’d blow his cover – he could tell it was considerably less than what this Starsky was used to. But it was necessary to limit their time together: first, he needed time to move his secret investigation into Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator forward; second, he needed to continue his study of this world; lastly, if anyone was going to figure out that Kenneth Fulvius Hutchison was a fraud, it would be his whipcrack partner, who gave off every sign that he wanted to renew his relationship with his Hutch.

“Too bad I’m not his Hutch,” he thought.

The investigation into Mariscalus was, so far, one big lacuna – he hadn’t so much as caught a whiff of scent of his prey. Fortuna and her wheel moved too quickly for him to catch her. As for their case load, which he had to keep up with as part of his cover, it was heavy yet also light. Heavy, in that the Metro Division was the busiest in Bay City; light, in that he’d have given his left nut to have such easy, no-kill cases back home.

Take, for example, the Widdicombe jewel heist. Hutch had known – or at least strongly suspected – that Emily Harrison had been Don Widdicombe’s tool: a young, naive art student coerced with fake avowals of love and lies to act as the lookout. She’d got her just deserts, he remembered thinking, when Starsky shot her as she jumped into his line of fire. Any citizen back home would have hit the pavement when Starsky shouted, “Police! Halt or I’ll fire!” Not Harrison. She’d put herself blindly into the path of Starsky’s bullet and ended up blind. When Hutch told Starsky she’d been the lookout, his response was raw, rejecting the theory. As Starsky wallowed in what he’d considered needless guilt, Hutch worked that case alone, rousting Pinky the Fence and even bringing in Huggy to act as a buyer during the final takedown.

He’d seen a hint of his Starsky at the end of the affair. Even in this soft world, a part of him existed within this man. Yes, Hutch had been arrogant about how easily he would’ve adjusted to being blind, even though that thought terrified him on a visceral level. But he’d wrapped the dishcloth around his eyes voluntarily and proceeded to demonstrate his prowess, never expecting this nice man he temporarily called his partner would perform the cruel joke that sent him headfirst down the staircase. Hutch got his own back, though: he’d lain still amidst the garbage, feigning death, until Starsky came thundering down the stairs to check on him. Two fingers pressed into his throat, checked for a pulse. Finding one, Starsky’s fine hands felt him over, looking, by touch, for broken bones. Still Hutch played dead. Lastly, those same fingers combed through his hair and the beloved voice he knew so well said, “Hutch, if you can hear me, don’t move. I’ll be right back. I gotta call an ambulance.”

When Starsky turned to leave, Hutch’s hand thrust out, viper fast, and caught his partner by the ankle, causing him to fall headfirst into the garbage next to him. Starsky came up cursing, but Hutch stopped him with a hard glare and an ultimatum: “You ever cause me to fall down a flight of starts again, I’ll break your trigger finger.”

Starsky looked stunned. “Why my trigger finger?”

“‘Cause you’ll be on desk duty, and I won’t have to ride with your homicidal ass for the eight weeks it’ll take for you to heal.”

“Hey,” Starsky said sorrowfully. “I wasn’t trying to kill you. Just take you down a few pegs. You’ve been an arrogant prick lately.”

“And you’ve been playing the soft fool with that girl. You’re the blind one, especially since I told you she was the lookout.”

“Fine,” Starsky said, a bit sourly, obviously still mad at having the tables turned on him. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again.”

There. Right there. That was the biggest difference. Hutch had never heard his Starsky apologize to anyone, except their captain, and that was under direct order.

“You wanna take a shower while I call for something to eat?” Starsky asked.

“No,” Hutch answered firmly, both of them still on their asses in the trash. “I’m going home.”

“Why? You’ve got clothes here.”

“Do I?” Hutch asked diffidently. “Bag ’em up. I’ll take them with me the next time I’m over.”

“Why?” Starsky asked, his tone reeking of hurt. His hand shot out and gripped Hutch’s shoulder.

“You know why,” Hutch said neutrally.

“No,” he answered harshly. “I don’t!”

“Well,” Hutch grumbled, heaving himself up, brushing eggshells off his shirt and jeans. “Maybe it’s because of shit like this.”

“Fuck you,” Starsky answered, leaping to his feet, old coffee grounds clinging to his curls. “You’ve been known to take your pound of flesh.”

“I’m not standing in the driveway arguing with you,” Hutch answered. “We both need to cool off. Give it a rest. I’ll see you at the station tomorrow.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Hutch got into his abused Ford LTD, backed out of the driveway, scraped a rim when he dropped off the curb badly, and wished he didn’t have to hurt this man who oh-so-obviously loved his partner and didn’t want to lose him. How easy it would be to play the role of lover with this Starsky, give him what he wanted in and out of bed. He even – for one dark moment – had imagined what it would be like if the experiment to recall him back to his own world failed. He couldn’t help but dream about being with a Starsky capable of loving him the way he wanted to be loved.

“What can’t be cured must be endured,” he thought morosely.

But sometimes, in the blackest corner of his heart, Hutch wished his scruples weren’t woven so tightly into the fabric of his soul.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Wednesday, December 7, 1978, A.D.

They’d worked a double on Thanksgiving so that the men with families could stay home, and ended up exhausted, eating egg rolls and sharing an order of Moo Goo Gai Pan at a Chinese joint that always stayed open for the Turkey Day losers: those without kin or who had to work, or the small Indian community in Bay City that was determined not to celebrate the holiday for political reasons. “And with good cause,” Hutch had thought. When Rome had gotten around to absorbing the Americas into the Empire, as per their modus operandi, they’d taken the local tribesmen into the Army auxiliaries. Some of the best legions today were all Native Americans, and all still held their tribal lands. They paid taxes and acknowledged the emperor as supreme leader, but there’d been no wholesale genocide of the indigenous population, as had happened here. Hutch shook his head, shaking off the tangential thought inspired by his research.

Because they’d worked the holiday, Dobey had given them the weekend off as compensation, and they’d spent Saturday evening getting ready for and attending a fancy art premiere held at the mansion of the client of the chick Starsky was dating.

Continuing his campaign of tiny barbs – the most effective way to keep his forgiving and very enthusiastic pseudo-partner at arm’s length – Hutch hadn’t bothered to tell Starsky about the tag hanging from his rented tuxedo jacket. When they’d arrived at the party, he’d had a hard time not punching the faces of all the snobs who’d laughed at Starsky behind his back. There wasn’t a single one of them, Hutch had thought, who was fit to untie his shoelaces. But menacing the guests would both undermine his labors to keep Starsky from jumping his bones and interfere with the absurd party that had turned into a murder investigation. Once they had “waitress” Greta Wren – AKA hired killer Dora Pruitt – in custody and singing herself into a sweet deal with the DA, all he and Starsky’d had left to do was bag the aging toymaker, Basil Monk, which they’d accomplished by distracting him with his own toys. Once again, another candy case that, back home, would have had his real partner griping about the abysmal decay of the criminal community.

Their current case, though, was proving to be novel. On Hutch’s world, it would be handled by a local magistrate because everyone – and he meant everyone, from senators to taverna owners – manufactured their own wine, liquor, or beer. Yeah, there were some big distilleries and breweries, typically owned by the Emperor or his cronies, but someone putting out a batch of bad homebrew wouldn’t attract the attention of the Metro Division. The offender would pay a sanguis solucionis – a blood fine, for which most businesses had insurance – and be done with the affair. But here? Different story.

Their first stop that fine Hump Day in December was a hot dog joint to get an early lunch before going home and changing into what Starsky called their “cowboy costumes.” It was Hutch’s turn to buy and, food in hand, he came back to the Torino to find what could only be called the mating display of the wild Starsky. His cock stirred in his pants at the sight of Starsky’s ass flexing and gyrating as he practiced his Anglo-Latin dance moves. Hutch imagined pushing Starsky into the car and soul kissing him while they ground one off fully clothed. “Keep it together. Keep it light,” he thought, looking up at the sky and willing his dick into submission. He gave a loud “ah-hem,” and Starsky almost stood at attention.

Their second stop was Starsky’s apartment. Evidently, he had more closet space and was the keeper of the vast majority of their undercover wardrobe, which was to be expected since this Starsky – much like his own – relished everything about going undercover. He watched as Starsky shrugged out of his t-shirt, sinuous as a cat in heat, replacing it with a casual white button down. The rest of his disguise consisted of a red bandana, a brown belt with a big gold-toned buckle embellished with a horse’s head, and a jean jacket. He passed Hutch a pale-pink shirt, a blue denim vest, and a brown leather belt with a brass buckle that featured three hearts on their sides: two small and a large one in the middle.

“Not enough,” Starsky said. He fished an enormous gray Western-style hat from the top shelf and plopped it on Hutch’s head. “There you go, Blondie. You’re too pretty to hang with the good ol’ boys with all that Godiva hair.” Then he rummaged through the shoe racks at the back of the closet and came out with two pairs of well-worn cowboy boots: light brown for him and a darker brown for ol’ Blondie.

Hutch observed through his lashes as Starsky bent and struggled into his boots, his fine backside turned in Hutch’s direction in what could have been an accident but surely wasn’t. Once again, he had to chastise his cock, tell it to behave. If this were his true partner, he’d take all that wriggling as an invitation to unzip, grind himself against that sweet ass, and then reach around to free his prick and jerk him off hard and fast, both of them too frantic to completely undress. But this was neither the time nor the place.

With a Herculean effort at chastity, Hutch threatened his cock with amputation, turned his back on Starsky, and dressed in the outfit chosen for him. When he spun around, he could see the disappointment and reproach in Starsky’s eyes, as if the man had read his mind.

“Tough break, buddy,” Hutch thought regretfully.

Their third stop of the day wasn’t in their jurisdiction but a down-at-heels beer joint out in the country. After a little run-in with Earl in the dusty parking lot, the corpulent but immensely strong man had enthusiastically welcomed them to The Smokey Mountain Inn – a dump that had a pool table, a jukebox, and a toilet that smelled like an outhouse. Earl soon let them know, as they bellied up to the bar, that they’d hit paydirt.

“Rudy! Pour my friends a double of the house special. They all right.”

Hutch quickly put in a polite dissent, not wanting to piss off their potential lead. “Begging your pardon. . . . Uh, no offense, but I’d like a beer.”

“Oh.” Earl was obviously disappointed with Hutch. “Well, boy,” he said, turning to Starsky. “This Cumberland home brew will knock your socks off.”

“Well, if it’s flammable, I’ll drink it.”

When Rudy, the bearded barkeep, had poured Starsky a generous snort of “white lightning,” and toasts to Alabama had made the rounds, Starsky, after a moment’s hesitation – and a reminder from Hutch that “it’s a little hard to dance with broken kneecaps” – drank up neat.

“This is my Starsky,” Hutch thought with a pang in his chest, missing his partner even more in this moment because this ersatz Starsky could, every so often, remind him so much of his lover back home. Bold, sometimes reckless. Totally aware of the potential consequences but willing to face them anyway. That was his man to a tee. Hutch had recently learned a new idiom, one not in general use on his world because it featured a Christian God: Devil-may-care. His Starsky was Devil-may-care pretty much all the time. This Starsky, while he had a streak of it in him, also knew how to be cautious. Except when he didn’t. Like now, as he polished off the first glass of moonshine and immediately ordered another.

Hutch was strictly a two-beers-max man. He didn’t like to be out of control, so he didn’t know what kind of drunk he was. But his real partner could be, alternately, merry, crafty, or cruel when drunk. He never turned that cruelty on his partner – unless Hutch was in the mood for a little rough stuff in the bedroom – and he understood Starsky’s need to let go occasionally. His partner was a taut bow; sometimes, the bow had to be unstrung. Hutch always had his back during these bouts and did his best to make sure they happened at home, not in public.

Except, of course, for the time they’d gone fishing in the mountains and stopped at the little town close to the lake to lay in some supplies. . . .

It was Starsky who’d suggested they get a drink at the fly-speckled shack of a watering hole. It wasn’t surprising, given that Starsky had bitched the whole drive up that he didn’t want to be eaten by a bear, that he’d started – and finished – a bar fight with seven of the locals, which got them thrown into the drunk tank for the weekend. They’d been lucky to bribe themselves out of a citation that would’ve gone on their permanent records. And the locals would never know how lucky they’d been in accepting that bribe to help solve a particularly nasty problem: being under siege by a mysterious cult dedicated to the Christian Devil. Turns out Hutch never got to go fishing. But Starsky got to go hunting. With a borrowed rifle, he took out the cult leader and dropped several others in their ritual circle, casting the group into chaos, all while Hutch extracted the kidnapped girl from the cabin where the cultists were holding her.

That’s not exactly how things had gone down on this Earth. Hutch had pulled the case jacket, just to see if there’d been any differences. The broad strokes were the same: kidnapped girl, scared town, drunk tank. But this world’s Starsky and Hutch had found a much less vicious answer to the townspeople’s dilemma.

Hutch shook his head to clear it. He knew he had to keep his mind on where he was and what he was doing. And, right now, he was in a hillbilly bar, watching Starsky get shit-faced on illegal hooch.

Pretty soon, the lunch crowd had gone back to work, and they were alone with Rudy the barkeep. When it appeared that this Starsky wasn’t going to fall over from alcohol poisoning, Hutch allowed himself to relax. Why? Because, so far, Starsky was a silly drunk – giggling like a schoolgirl and handsy to boot, despite Rudy witnessing his antics. Starsky’s touch was wonderful, even if it wasn’t from his real lover. Hutch ached to feel those knowing, familiar fingers stroke and pinch. Four months into this assignment and he hadn’t so much as fucked a hooker. Because there was no point in dwelling on any of that, he told himself to get his head back in the game.

It was only after he got the barkeep to hand over his last jug of moonshine and squeezed him for his meager intel – a beautiful girl in a yellow truck – that he and Starsky left the bar. When Starsky hissed and covered his eyes like a demonic, blood-drinking lemur exposed to the sunlight, Hutch chuckled at his antics. When Starsky insisted he could drive, Hutch grinned at the idea of letting him do anything but stagger to the Torino, much less drive them back to the precinct.

“Sometimes, work is play,” Hutch thought as he poured his rubberized partner into the passenger seat.

“I’ll tell you what,” Hutch said to the three-sheets-to-the-wind man in his care. “Give me the keys and you can drive. Okay?”

Starsky fumbled his keys out of his pocket, and Hutch snagged them speedily.

“You know, you fooled me on that,” Starsky slurred. “I’m driving. You’re driving.”

“Maybe if you tried on your little black pumps,” Hutch teased, “you’d feel better. Come on. Up you go.”

Hutch put the car in drive as Starsky giggled, buried his face in his chauffeur’s lap, and mouthed his dick through his jeans. Hutch’d barely had time to get hard before Starsky passed out.

“Now the tough luck is on me,” Hutch thought, killing his cock with his mind for the third time that day. It was a hard kill because the lolling head kept brushing against his junk, and he was far too close to those oh-so-tempting curls that he loved.

Taking Starsky back to work in his present condition was not an option. Back home, it would have earned him five lashes. But while this Dobey – who, despite yelling at them regularly, had an easier-on-the-ears volume the rest of the time – wouldn’t string Starsky up, he might put him on report. Best to call in to dispatch that they were continuing to follow up on leads, rather than risk any type of punishment.

When Starsky woke up, Hutch would get him coffeed up. Then they could finish visiting the list of country-western bars that might be selling moonshine.

Twenty minutes later, Starsky woke with a belch that smelled of acid and hard liquor. Hutch pulled over for coffee and Starsky nursed it miserably, hunched over in the passenger seat, looking rough around the edges but, thankfully, not poisoned by what he’d consumed – merely sick to his stomach from downing 180-proof spirits.

Starsky’s mood got even darker when they spotted their prime suspect in a beer joint parking lot from their list, given chase to the lemon-yellow pick-up truck – which drove like it had an airplane engine under the hood – and quickly lost her.

“We woulda had better luck with a skateboard,” Starsky opined gloomily. Then he groaned, “I think I’m gonna be sick!”

“Oh, no!” Hutch pulled over immediately, and Starsky hopped out. But the police dispatcher’s crackly voice came over the radio, letting them know they had a patch through from Dobey. Starsky hopped back in the car and they both reached for the handset at the same time. Hutch won.

“Hutchinson? I want you and Starsky to check out that Old Backwoods Inn.”

“I thought Kendall was going to take care of that,” Hutch said.

“He did, last night,” said Dobey. “They found his body about an hour ago up on Old Ranch Road.”

Hutch frowned. It was a tough break. He and Starsky had met Robert Kendall yesterday. He searched his memory for what he knew about the federal agent and his organization. Evidently, if what he’d read was to be believed, just a few years ago the Treasury Department had stood up a new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to handle cases like this. Which, to Hutch’s mind, was weird. The Imperium had no cognate with this bureau. But maybe it should. Now that plebes and officials – or, more accurately, citizens and agents – were dropping like flies, it was up to just him and Starsky to track down the bootleggers and pull the plug on their lethal moonshine operation.

And, for a change, he was pretty sure he knew the perfect cover: C.W. Jackson and his magic guitar. The world had better get ready!

Dave Starsky
Bay City, California
Thursday, December 8, 1978, A.D.

I wake in pain, but I’ve felt far worse, so I choose not to let it bother me and decide to stay in bed a while longer. What good is a sick day if you can’t lay up? What did bother me was the fact Hutch seemed to know what he was doing when he sat on the big boiler pot I was trapped under yesterday. Yeah, my foot was already hurt, but friends don’t add insult to injury. Right?

Right?

On the other hand, friends don’t trick friends into falling down the stairs, either.

What the fuck is wrong with me? With Hutch? With us?

Nothing’s been right since he was hurt in the lightning storm. I mean, the doctor said he could have personality changes. I just didn’t believe it would happen. I’m believing it now.

Except, I don’t believe it. Not completely.

I see how Hutch looks at me, when he thinks I’m not paying attention. Nothing too out there, more like his gaze lingers just a moment too long, betraying more than casual interest. Or he stands just a little too close. Yeah. Hutch keeps stealing glances, each one slower and bolder than the last. It wouldn’t be hard for me to catch him in the act and confront him, but I haven’t. Instead, I keep reaching out, putting a hand on his shoulder or his arm, or allowing my knuckles to brush his as we walk along, while we’re doing normal case stuff. It’s like we’re having a conversation but one of us is pretending he doesn’t speak English. If Hutch wants me to know that I know he’s still interested in what I got to give, he’d let me know, right?

Wrong.

I know Hutch isn’t one to play games with somebody’s heart. He never has in the past. Not with women.

Not with me. When we got together, he didn’t pretend that what we had was forever. I wish it could be, but I get that we’re cops and cops don’t do certain things – like sleep with their very male partners. Or even their female partners. I mean, it’s just frowned on, no matter who you’re sleeping with. But two dudes together can’t even be imagined. Even a rumor could be deadly. But man, people have been talking shit about me and Hutch for years and we haven’t paid the piper. Not yet, at least. So, what does it matter? I mean, if people think we’re doing it when we aren’t, then we got nothing to lose by going balls to the wall. Right?

Maybe.

I just got to figure out how to get through this shield he’s put between us. Sometimes, I feel like, maybe, I’m just not smart enough to solve the Hutch puzzle. See, no matter how much shit he gives me, no matter how distant or prickly the animal called Hutch might be, I know he still wants me. That much I’m sure about. And I still want him.

Uh-oh.

God damn it!

I know someone else who still wants Hutch: “Lil’ Starsk.” I flip back the blankets and see that my dick has magically transformed into my cock. Not like I can get anything done with a boner like this. I wriggle out of my pajama pants and toss ’em on the floor. Gotta do laundry later anyway. Then I root around in my nightstand for the Surgi-lube, unscrew the top, and use it to create a sex-jelly hat on top of my cock. Satisfied with the glistening glop I’ve painted, which is already dripping down the shaft, I cap the tube, toss it back in the drawer, then close it.

Not wasting time, I get down to it, wrapping my fingers around my rod. And no sense changing the channel: It was thoughts of Hutch that got my motor running; might as well see where this road leads. I strop myself, spreading the lube around evenly and giving the shaft a little of what it wants. But I want more than a hasty jerk off. I wanna think about my lover, former lover, hope-to-be-future lover – fuck it, just Hutch. No good-time gal needed, just images of my golden guy doing . . . what? Sucking me off? The eager jump my heart and my cock give tells me I’m on the right path, but I’m in the mood for something a little more involved. How often do I get to take my time? In the mornings, I gotta get ready for work. At night, half the time I’m too tired or depressed by the shitty day I’ve had chasing drug dealers, murderers, and rapists that I don’t have the energy to masturbate.

Enough of that shit, says my cock. Go back to the Hutch Channel.

Yeah, yeah, I tell my cock. We’re on the same page.

I think about how good it feels to lie on top of Hutch, rubbing our cocks together in the world’s best version of sword fighting ever invented. I roll onto my stomach, cupping my cock and balls, when I remember these are the last of my clean sheets and I don’t wanna mess ’em up on day one. I move to my knees fast before I get any of the goop on the bed, ’cause all my laundry baskets are overflowing as it is. Flopping onto my back, I try to think of some smoking hot time between me and Hutch. Then it comes to me.

Hutch liked to massage my balls almost as much as I liked having ’em massaged. So that’s what I do: firmly knead my balls and gently stroke my cock, fully intending to make this last as long as possible, the way Hutch did sometimes, just to make the magic moment extra special. Pretty soon my chest is heaving, and my heart feels like it’s grown three sizes, just the Grinch’s, grown so big it’s pushing my lungs outta the way and making me work to draw in enough air to keep conscious.

Just when I think it’s time to up the tempo and cross this finish line, the fingers of my right hand get an idea of their own and start creeping lower on my sack, venturing towards no-man’s land. My palm continues to massage my Sack-Full-O’-Nuts while my fingertips creep closer to my hole.

Whoa. This is new territory for me. I’ve had a couple of girlfriends try a little ass play, but I’d gently discouraged it either by subtly changing position, making everything harder to reach, or returning the favor, thinking that was what they wanted for themselves. Hutch had never tried this on me, but a part of me wishes he had. I touch my rim gently, just skimming it with one finger. Without any command from me, my eyes shut, my neck arches. This feels good. Good? Edging my rim feels fucking fantastic!

You know that old saying, “the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing?” Well, my left hand is keeping with the slow-and-steady program, but my right? Sheesh! It’s got two fingers circling my butthole, spreading the lube around, sending lightning bolts of pleasure south to my toes and north to my brain – or what’s left of it. The pre-come leaking from my slit has already filled my bellybutton to overflowing.

Do it, I tell my right hand. But it’s not really me saying it in my head. It’s Hutch’s beautiful voice. All the years I’ve known him and I’ve never run outta ways to describe his voice in my head: Perfectly balanced, not too high or too low, smooth and mellow, not a hint of strain, each word spoken as clear as a musical note, except when he’s facing down some perp or pissy DA.

Wrong channel! Wrong channel! Go back! 

Yeah, yeah. I got you.

While I was stupidly fumbling the mental flipper, I’d stopped stropping my cock. Time to get my head back in the game, warming up to my fantasy. Hutch is here. He’s talking to me, his voice soothing, calming, like he knows what I want better than I do. And he’s gonna show me with those fine long fingers of his how to make me feel something I’ve never felt before, all while he whispers honeyed words in my ear. So warm. Velvety, I think, as Hutch’s fingers stroke me down there, and I don’t know when I became a teenager again, but I guess it don’t matter when’s the first time you get around to doing something, whether you’re sixteen or thirty-five.

Even though I know it’s just me daydreaming, it’s still Hutch who’s touching me, sliding one long finger into me, as gentle as his voice, the one that’s telling me, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Starsk. Trust me, babe.” There’s no sharp edges in that beloved voice, just as silky as what his slick fingers are doing to me, touching me on the inside, touching all of me. And here I am, letting him in, all the way in, not just fucking but making love, making it deep, in a way I’ve never let anyone touch me, and I don’t just mean the physical. Fuck me! I’m so screwed. I want Hutch so much. I wanna hear that tender voice again, the one I miss, the one that’s held my heart captive for years, bound tight to Hutch’s own heart. But I was too stupid to see those chains weren’t made of steel. They were made of a love and respect so deep that Hutch was willing to break those chains, for my sake, if that’s what it took for me to be happy.

Now I’m grabbing my cock hard – no more Mister Nice Guy – pumping as fast as I can. Meanwhile, my fingers are circling my hole from the inside, tugging and stretching the virgin muscle, causing it to burn, to spasm, and I don’t care. I don’t know if it’s beads of sweat or actual tears (sure I know . . . I’m a fucking liar, too . . . and that just makes me madder at myself), but whatever they are, teardrops or drops of sweat, they run down my cheek, pooling at the base of my neck, making it so easy for me to imagine Hutch leaning in to kiss it all away, those soft lips wrapping around those soft words that used to be just for me – except for the past year of fear and anger and heartbreak – that beautiful voice now so distant and teasing, cruel even. “Come for me, babe,” says the voice I miss so damned much, the one I’ve killed by being an ass. Then I feel my come spilling over my belly, my hole spasming around my embedded fingers, only now they aren’t Hutch’s fingers I’m fantasizing about but that big cock of his splitting me in two, letting all the love I feel for that blond bastard out, the love I locked away and tried to hide.

For what feels like forever, but is probably a lot closer to ten minutes, I lay in a sticky mess of drying lube and come and try to remember where it all went wrong. It’s Hutch’s fault, my three-year-old “I want my cake and wanna eat it, too” self says. Things ain’t been the same since I got back from New York. Since Hutch got hurt. I knew then I shoulda come home right away. Maybe, if I’d listened to my gut instead of my head, things woulda turned out different.

Who am I kidding?

The old Hutch would’ve kicked my ass for abandoning Ma. What do I even mean, “Old Hutch?” I mean, Hutch told me himself that I shouldn’t come back, that I had to take care of Ma. He wanted me to do the right thing, and I did the right thing. So, if I did everything right, why are things so fucked up between us? It ain’t fair!

That’s it. Time to grow up, like Dobey told me. We don’t live in a perfect world. Never have. I mean, looking back, it felt pretty damned perfect when me and Hutch were on the same page, whether that was on the streets or in the sheets. How’s the Joni Mitchell song go? “You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” It’s time to stop playing make believe and return to the real world.

I get up on one leg, like a damned stork, and stare down with disgust at how badly I’ve wrecked the sheets. Fuck. Me. There’s no way I can carry a laundry basket on crutches, so I’m just gonna have to live with it. Doesn’t mean I have to look at it, I think, flipping the covers over the huge wet spot.

One problem solved. Now I have to deal with my hands.

No sense going to the bathroom, as there’s no clean washcloths or towels. Instead, I hop on one foot, naked, to the kitchen for a paper towel. I’ve just got the jizz off my belly and fingers as a set of keys rattle outside my front door. Panicked, ’cause only Hutch has keys to my apartment, I throw on an apron and thrust my hands in last night’s sink water, where I’d set the pans to soak. I pretend I’m washing the dishes as Hutch lets himself in. Wondering what that crinkling rustle is, I look over my shoulder to see that his arms are full of paper grocery bags.

“I always suspected you were a nudist at heart, Starsk,” he says, setting the bags on the counter and looking pointedly at my ass. “I wouldn’t recommend frying anything in that outfit, though; one pop of grease on that thin apron and your wiener will be scarred for life.”

“Everyone’s a comedian,” I grumble, using the dishcloth to dry my hands. Brazening it out, I turn full frontal to Hutch, my white apron no better than a loincloth that leaves nothing to the imagination, aware my chest hair is tangled in the neck strap that snakes nearly to my nipples. “Why are you here?”

“A man’s got to take care of his injured partner, right?” Hutch begins to put away the groceries: challah bread; one jar each of apricot, fig, and prune jam; one box of Gabila’s frozen knishes; one package of Golden’s frozen latkes; a disposable pan of fresh stuffed cabbage; a New York cheesecake; and what looks like the makings for chicken soup. All my favorites from when I was a kid and Ma pulled out all the stops.

“I went to the East Street Kosher Market this morning. If you’ll talk me through your mom’s recipe, I’ll make you some Jewish penicillin,” Hutch says.

Touched, I say, “Yeah. But I won’t talk you through it. We’ll call Ma, tell her I’m hurt – “Again, David?” she’ll say – and we’ll distract her from her standard you’ve-got-to-be-more-careful speech by having her talk you through the recipe. Besides,” I add, “Ma’s half in love with you. In her eyes, you can do no wrong. So do me a favor and tell her it’s you and the dirt bike’s fault I’m injured. I’m tired of being the fall guy.”

“Good idea to call Alma,” Hutch says. “And I’ll take the blame for your foot, wild man, but not without telling her you jumped in the back of a truck without me. And use your damned crutches,” he barks. “Where have you left them now?”

“In the bedroom,” I answer, having enough sense to be embarrassed that I can’t take of myself, even if I don’t have the sense to be embarrassed about being bare-assed in front of my former lover.

“Why would you come all the way out here without your crutches?” Hutch demands.

Because I’d just jerked off while fantasizing about you and my hands were covered in come and Surgi-lube and I didn’t want to muck up my crutch handles is probably not the answer Hutch wants to hear, so I simply shrug instead.

“Mushbrain,” he mutters, stalking off in the direction of my bedroom. He returns in seconds with the crutches in hand and thrusts them at me. “Go get dressed. I’ll get the coffee started and we’ll toast up some of this challah bread and try out the jams. It’s a new-to-me brand and I want to see what they taste like.”

I nod in response. Taking the crutches from Hutch’s outstretched hands, I use them, nimble as a gymnast – and proud of that, if nothing else today – to swing my way to the bedroom and a more appropriate outfit.

And just when I thought he didn’t care.

 

Chapter XI: Sonus Silentii

David Michaèl Starsky
Province of California, Bay City
Thursday, 14 October 1978, J.C.

Starsky unlocked the cuffs. Deliberately lowered – “What do I even call this guy?” he thought – not-Hutch’s arms, putting them to rest on the pillows. Got out of bed. Placed the gleaming circlets and his own piece on Hutch’s desk, far away from temptation. By the time he’d returned to the bedroom, the man who wasn’t his partner, but sure as Hades looked like him, was completely dressed, standing in front of the nightstand. Starsky noted the magnum was missing. Not-Hutch looked angry and frightened. It wasn’t a natural look on the features of his oh-so-cool partner. Right there was proof enough this wasn’t his Hutch.

They’d each had a rough night, so maybe – just maybe – Starsky would cut him some slack. He knew he wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of the shit he’d laid down. All told, this guy was keeping it together pretty good.

“We’re both strung out,” Starsky acknowledged. He turned and opened the bureau drawer that held Hutch’s workout clothes. He rooted around, finally settling on a worn pair of red sweatpants, the color of his old legionnaire’s cloak.

“You think so?” not-Hutch hissed back.

Starsky ignored the sass, concentrating on stepping into the pants without falling over. “I would drive to my place, but I’m too wrung out to see straight. I’ll crash on the couch. We can talk in the morning. Try to come up with something remotely like a plan. Okay?”

“Okay,” Hutch said warily, his eyes never veering from Starsky’s.

As he turned toward the living room, Hutch handed him a pillow and his dagger. Starsky felt something in his chest move, the feeling warm, deep. He appreciated that, even now, fresh from the edge of torture and death, this man who wore his lover’s face cared enough about his comfort and safety to give him a pillow and his blade.

He’d barely stretched out on the cushions when the kitchen light was extinguished. Darkness consumed the apartment. Starsky listened carefully, tracking not-Hutch by sound, as he retraced his steps to the bedroom. In a moment, he heard the box springs squeak, the covers rustle. Only then did he pull the afghan off the back of the couch and cover himself. He wished he wasn’t so exhausted: He wanted to know that Hutch – not-Hutch, whoever – was in the next room resting, but he just couldn’t keep his eyes open another minute.

Starsky pushed his face into the pillow and breathed deep the scent of the man he loved, comforted by the scent, too tired to consider if it belonged to his lover or this stranger who was, for now, his partner.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Friday, 15 October 1978, J.C.

I startle awake, but despite nightmares too terrible to even contemplate in daylight, I’m hungry as a lion, last night’s crêpes long gone. I stand, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, go to the bathroom and take a leak, then slip quietly into the kitchen. I have some blueberries in the freezer and a box of instant pancake mix on the shelf. That’ll have to be good enough. I don’t feel like I’ve got much left in my tank after last night’s terrifying debacle. The strange thing is, I think my father would actually be proud of me, for once. I may not have become a lawyer like he wanted, but I sure as hell argued my case before the Supreme Court last night. And if I’d lost, I wouldn’t be here worrying if the berries are freezer burnt. But all that terror was worth it: Starsky believes me – no matter how crazy the idea – he believes me when I say something extraordinarily bad has happened, that I’m not his Hutch and he’s not my Starsky.

I set the skillet to warming as I add water and mix the batter. I don’t even bother to measure – just dump half the box in the bowl and add water directly from the tap until I reach the right consistency. It’s not long before I’ve got a large dollop of batter poured into the skillet and I’m artfully dropping the berries one-by-one into the raw pancake dough, making a concentric circle for no better reason than the fact that I can. When I’m done, I test the edge by slipping the spatula under to check the color. Golden brown. Perfect. I flip it over, knowing the heat will cause the berries to burst and spread their goodness.

It’s then I sense Starsky coming up behind me. He barely bushes up against my back, just enough to get past me in the tight space between the stove and the kitchen chairs, then he opens the fridge. I’m hyperaware of his every movement. I watch from the corner of my eye as he grabs the bottle of orange juice, sets it on the table. Note as he makes his way to the cupboard, pulls out two matching juice glasses and two plates, puts them on the table in turn. Watch as he pads to the pantry, roots through the dry goods until he finds the coffee can by touch, then starts to make the coffee.

By the time Starsky has poured two cups and laid out the silverware, I’ve got a stack of pancakes ten high. It’s my turn to dig through the pantry to find the real maple syrup – not that fake crap that Starsky keeps at his apartment. I snag the bottle, pick up the plate of pancakes, and join Starsky at the table. He’s naked to the waist, still dressed in nothing else but last night’s red sweats.

After I settle myself in the chair farthest away from him, I take a moment to search his face for – what? Homicidal anger? Lust? What I see is my partner, his features restful and attentive. Yeah, he’s got dark circles under his eyes from too little sleep – I’m sure I do, too – but even though this isn’t my partner, he nevertheless is my partner.

“Gotta go,” he declares as he gobbles down his last forkful of food. “Stop at a couple of places. Maybe even make a phone call. It might take me a few hours to get an answer, but I think I’ll get some kinda intel. You okay to hang here ’til I get back?”

“No,” I answer, my voice neutral. “This is my life we’re talking about. We have a better chance of solving this thing together than you ever will working by yourself.”

Starsky studies me. Whatever he sees, it must measure up.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ll work together. You gotta know that the people I’m calling are ruthless. Make the gangs of Bay City look like kindergarteners. And they’re connected. I mean, all the way to the top. Provincial governors. Maybe even the Emperor himself.”

“Do I look like someone who’s got a choice?”

“No,” Starsky answers. “That’s the whole problem with the Empire: Nobody has a choice.”

David Michahèl Starsky
Two hours later, Same Day

Hutch was quiet throughout their quest, but Starsky hadn’t expected anything else. For that matter, he was also quiet, totally concentrated on where he was and what he was doing.

Their first stop was ostensibly at a combination tailor-drycleaner’s storefront by the name of Del Floria’s II. They found the shop windows covered from the inside with newspapers and a handwritten sign taped to the door that stated, “Permanently Closed.” Starsky pounded on the door and yelled, “Hey, Mario!” to no avail.

“That’s strike one,” Starsky said as they got back in the Torino. Hutch nodded, the frown line between his fine brows deep as a well.

“Where next?” Hutch asked.

“Fort Arthurus,” Starsky replied, putting the car in drive.

“Why there?”

“That’s where my Army handler keeps an office. He might not know what’s going on, but he’ll damned well know people who will. Remember, it was at Fort Arthurus where I recovered from – no, wait. Of course you don’t remember,” Starsky said, backpedaling. “Damn! This is so weird!” He cut his eyes away from the road for just a second, drinking in the sight of the man on the seat next to him. “If you grew a mustache and put on ten pounds, you’d look just like my Hutch.”

“If you laughed more and cut back on the broodiness, you’d be a dead ringer for my Starsky,” Hutch retorted.

“You find anything funny about the situation we’re in?”

“No. Do you?”

Starsky shook his head, then got off the side streets and turned onto the Appian Way.

Two hours of steady driving later, they pulled up to the main gate of the Fort Arthurus Army Base.

“I’m Detective Sergeant David Starsky and this is Detective Sergeant Kenneth Hutchinson of the United Provinces Police Force, Bay City,” Starsky told the young soldier at the gatehouse. He produced his identification and handed it to the guard, who peered at it like it was written in cuneiform.

“What can I do for you, Detectives?” asked the private.

“I know we’re not on the list, but we’ve got to speak to Dr. Marcus Korby, in the Science and Technology Directorate,” Starsky answered. “It’s about a missing person case.”

“Give me a minute to call up to the base, sir,” the private said.

It look considerably longer than a minute for Starsky and Hutch to be told that Marcus Korby had been transferred last week to an undisclosed location, and that bit of information had been delivered to them by an unidentified bird colonel himself, who stomped out to the gate, his face a thundercloud.

“Is there any way I can get a message to him?” Starsky asked, his tone growing darker.

“No,” growled the colonel, his wrathful demeanor conveying his answer was final. “What part of ‘undisclosed’ was unclear to you, sergeant?”

“Let’s split, Starsk,” Hutch said under his breath. Both of them remembered to sketch a fist-to-chest salute and murmur vale to the colonel, who looked as if he would enjoy arresting two quarrelsome cops, then jack up the stockade and put them under it.

They were back on the Appian way, motoring towards Bay City, before Starsky trusted himself to speak without snapping. “That’s strike two.”

“I’m sensing you’ve got a third option,” Hutch said.

“Yeah. There’s one phone booth in Bay City that’s constantly monitored by the Directorate. At least, that’s what I was told by my handler, Korby. I was also told not to use it unless it was a real emergency. On pain of death.”

“By all means,” Hutch said, loosening his magnum in its holster. “Let’s go make a call.”

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Three Hours Later, Same Day

We find a parking spot on Broadway and 11^th, in front of Oceanside Pastries. The phone booth is just a little further down the block. Starsky wants me to buy something at the bakery and stand out in front eating it, ready to spring into action if something goes wrong, while he makes the call.

“What if the phone booth is boobytrapped?” I ask first.

“You’ve seen too many episodes of Mission Impossible.” Starsky’s tone is laconic.

“Maybe you should watch Three Days of the Condor again,” I retort. When the film came out a couple of years ago, we’d both been eager to see it, being Robert Redford fans. The plot was deep, with lots of twists and turns: a mild-mannered CIA analyst targeted by his own side for death when he learned the higher ups had decided to invade the Middle East to insure oil for America. “We did see this movie together, right?”

“Yeah,” he concurs. “We both like Robertus Redford. Good movie.”

I ignore the “Robertus” as just more of the local color I found so alien. “Not when Three Days of the Condor becomes your life story.”

“True enough,” Starsky says. “But I’m a small fish, in the grand scheme of things. The Science Directorate sees me as a tool – a weapon they point at problems. They see themselves as pulling the trigger, not me.”

“You’re no man’s tool,” I say, angry on Starsky’s behalf. His voice had been neutral, but I can hear just a flicker of the hurt under it. “Fuck this S-Science Directorate.”

Starsky gives me a grin that warms me to my toes. “Thanks. Sometimes I need to hear that.”

I’m astonished. It’s the first time I’ve seen evidence of vulnerability in this man. It’s good to know this Starsky’s capable of the feeling – but the longer I spend in his world, the more I understand why it’s not wise to show it.

“If we sit here any longer,” Starsky continues, completely professional now, “and there really is a lookout, then we’re gonna get made. Get me a raspberry jelly doughnut and, hopefully, I’ll be alive five minutes from now to eat it.”

Thankfully, there’s no line in the bakery. I tell the clerk to hand me a cream horn and put a raspberry jelly doughnut in a bag. I’ve just exited the premises when I see Starsky open the Torino’s door. He glances down at his watch, but I can tell he’s using it as an opportunity to check out the surrounding buildings through his lashes, looking for anything fishy. He must be satisfied because he strolls down to the phone booth, rooting in his front pocket for a quadrans (I still remember how shocked Starsky had been when I couldn’t make change the first time I bought us lunch post-accident; in retrospect, it was very kind of him to sit me down and do what he thought was reteaching the monetary system to me). Starsky reaches the phone, but I see he doesn’t bother to place a call.

I get in the car when he does and am greeted with a vociferous, “Fuck!”

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Why didn’t you make the call?”

“Someone’s ripped the receiver out,” he answers, his disgust and frustration self-evident.

“Well,” I say, conciliatorily. “This isn’t exactly the best part of town.”

“I don’t think it was random vandalism, Hutch. A vandal wouldn’t just yank the receiver out – that’s destruction of Empire property. Mandatory ten lashes. For the same ten lashes, any self-respecting vandal would’ve busted the coin box and taken the money. It’s all about balancing risk with payout.”

I nod, seeing his point. “So, you’re pretty sure this was intentional?”

“Yup.”

“What’s our next play, then?” I ask, momentarily stumped.

“We’re gonna go see the Greek. But first, we gotta stop by the station.”

Starsky peels out, leaving me to wonder who “the Greek” might be and what we need that can only be found at the station.

David Michahèl Starsky
Two Hours later, Same Day

Starsky took the stairs two at a time, hand on his dagger. This wasn’t a bad part of town. This wasn’t a bad building. He knows because he and Hutch had scoped out and rented the joint before they’d purchased Xerxes. Sort of like getting the garage ready before buying a new car. They’d wanted to insure their investment wasn’t stabbed in a random mugging. The landlord had assumed they were renting the place to have somewhere to fuck their mistresses without their wives finding out. They’d let him think that. As for what he thought when a middle-aged Greek scholar had moved in, who gave a fuck?

So, even though this was a decent apartment in a decent part of town, Starsky was glad to have backup; if you can imagine it happening, you need to be able to imagine it happening to you. This Hutch might not have been his partner, but he’d rode with him long enough to get the mettle of the man. He was no backstabber. No candy weight, either.

They’d finally hoofed it to the third floor and now stood outside door 3C. The irony wasn’t lost on Starsky: they’d come here to try to learn the identity of Dr. Three-Cs Cohen. The only individual who’d met the mysterious doctor in person – an individual who Starsky trusted to give answers and not spread rumors around the station – was Xerxes, their private informant and full-time precinct janitor. All this he’d explained to Hutch in the car after they’d picked up an Identi-Kit at work.

Starsky kept watch on the hallway as Hutch knocked on the door. At eye level was a little window with a brass grill in the shape of Neptune’s trident. The tiny door on the inside lifted. Starsky heard a little exclamation of “ah!” followed by a rattle of two chains and the clamor of three deadbolts unlatching before Xerxes opened the steel door and waved them in.

“Welcome to my home, Masters,” Xerxes exclaimed with a bow, though he kept his voice low. He was a freedman, after all, but Starsky knew and approved that he didn’t do anything to call that into question – such as talking loud enough to his “masters” for the neighbors to overhear. “Can you stay and sit for a while? Shall I fetch wine?”

“Yeah,” Starsky answered, even as Hutch disappeared into the depths of the apartment, clearing it room-by-room, as per their plan made on the way over. “And bring some bread and oil, if you got it. Me and Hutch haven’t eaten anything except a doughnut since breakfast.”

“Of course! I’ll be right back.”

Starsky watched as Hutch came into the neat living room and gave a nod. Good. They were alone. He’d expected no less, having made it clear that they didn’t expect the freedman to be celibate. But Starsky and Hutch had also made it understood that, as long as he was their informant, Xerxes had better bang his rides at their houses; he could never bring someone back to the apartment. Ever. This was as much their safehouse (and not the only one) as it was the Greek’s abode.

Xerxes was back in under two minutes with a large tray that held a bottle of red wine, three glasses, a plate of olives swimming in oil, a block of crumbly white goat’s cheese, a bowl of salted sardines, and a big round loaf of bread. He passed between Starsky and Hutch and sat the tray in the center of the oval dining table. Soon he had the bottle opened and poured three glasses.

“I want some water, too,” Hutch said, having agreed with Starsky earlier to drink just one glass of wine.

“So sorry. I bring it now.”

They made themselves comfortable at the table, sitting close and from a position that offered a good view of the front door. There was no back entrance to worry about, as the window to the fire escape had a metal grate and a lock assembly only accessible from inside the apartment.

Xerxes returned with a blue glass pitcher of water and three tumblers. He barely had time to sit before the detectives were digging into the food laid out before them.

“Good bread, this,” Starsky said around a mouthful of the soft wheat bread.

“Not from the bakery,” said their host with obvious pride. “I make it myself, today. Fresh.”

“Is that honey I taste?” asked Hutch.

“Yes,” said Xerxes eagerly. “But the real sweetness comes from proofing the yeast in warm apricot water.”

“Okay, you two,” Starsky cautioned, chewing and swallowing a number of black olives, then chasing them with a large gulp of wine. “This isn’t the time for The Julia Puer Cooking Hour and this isn’t a social call.”

“I did not even imagine it for a moment, Master. How can I be of service?”

Starsky nodded at his partner.

“We need you to do something for us,” Hutch said, opening the black case he placed on the table. It was the depth of Starsky’s palm and twice as wide and tall, with a little black handle at the top. Inside were neatly labeled file folders with names like “beards,” “hats,” “jawlines,” and many others. “This is an Identi-Kit, which is a composite sketch kit. You’ll be selecting different hairstyles and facial components – such as eyes, noses, mouths – from a collection of clear acetate sheets. We’ll stack the sheets on top of each other to form a complete face, based on your memories. Do you follow me so far?”

Xerxes the Greek said, “Yes, sir. I have seen such things on the TV and in the movies.”

“At the end of August, you gave me a great description of Dr. Cecil Caleb Cohen on the precinct’s back loading dock,” Starsky said. “Do you remember?”

The former slave nodded. “I see words, Master. Mine. Yours. My children I taught. Once heard, I cannot forget them. It is a blessing and a curse, as there are so many words I wish I could forget.”

Hutch said, “Do you remember what you said about Dr. Cohen?”

“Yes, Master.”

Seeing Hutch grimace, Starsky said, “You don’t have to keep calling us that, Xerks.”

“Sirs,” Xerxes acquiesced, addressing both men with a nod of his head. Then he said to Hutch, “I told Detective Starsky that the doctor had white skin, somewhere between your partner’s color and your color. He was not fat nor thin. Not tall like you, sir. Maybe a little shorter than Mas— Detective Starsky. He appeared to be quite mature but not old. He wore a mustache a lot like yours, sir, only light gray. Lastly, the doctor had a bald head.”

The Greek, Starsky noted, had the good sense not to ask why Hutch couldn’t perform this task himself, having also met the man. “Old habits die hard once you’ve been a slave,” Starsky thought shrewdly.

As Xerxes described their suspect, Starsky watched as Hutch’s long fingers flipped swiftly through the contents of the Identi-Kit, pulling out clear sheets with a bald hairline, age lines, a medium jawline, and a mustache much like his own, only lighter in tone. “It’s up to you to add the rest,” Hutch said. At Xerxes’ nod, Hutch pushed the kit toward the informant and continued eating.

Starsky observed their man carefully flipping through the various identification options, selecting one, rejecting another.

Barely had thirty minutes passed – the time it took to polish off most of the food – when Xerxes seemed satisfied with his work. Hutch handed him four small bulldog clips to secure the corners, brought there with that purpose in mind, to keep the stacked sheets together to form one image.

“This is very close, Detectives. I could, perhaps, refine it some more,” he said, flipping the composite image of Dr. Cohen around for both Starsky and Hutch to see.

Starsky’s blood ran first cold, then flash-pointed to boil. “Gimme the kit,” he demanded. He flipped quickly though the hairstyles, found one he recognized as close enough, then added a slightly heavier set of eyebrows. He slapped them on top of the secured composite image, laying his forefinger across the mustache to obscure it. “I know this guy,” Starsky announced. “Good job, Xerks! We’ll get out of your hair now.”

Their informant wasted no time on goodbyes, instead checking that the hallway was clear of tenants before bowing them out silently.

Having grabbed the Identi-Kit and the acetate sketch, Hutch followed on the heels of his partner. Starsky shook his head to clear it, then laid his left hand on his dagger and the forefinger of his right hand on his lips. Hutch nodded, agreeing silently to discuss their findings once they were alone. The corner of Starsky’s mouth lifted when Hutch laid his hand on his dagger, too, ready for action.

They were in the Torino, which Starsky had parked in a municipal lot three blocks over, before Hutch spoke. “Who are we dealing with?”

“You know my Army handler, who we’ve been looking for half the day?”

“By reputation,” Hutch answered.

“That’s our guy: Marcus Rogerian Korby,” Starsky said through clenched teeth. “He’s smart. A scientist with the Science and Technology Directorate and handler for who knows how many former legionnaires with special skills.”

“If he’s done a fade, it’s got to be because he doesn’t want you to find him,” Hutch stated.

“And if he’s mixed up in this, it probably means your Electric Slide with Tempestas wasn’t an accident,” Starsky said, his anger ratcheting up. “Did the same thing happen to my Hutch?” he asked himself. He was willing to bet his right nut that it did. “I’m gonna kill Korby for mixing my man up in whatever mad plan this is!”

A big, strong hand gripped Starsky’s knee. Another hand gripped his shoulder for a few beats, then began making soothing circles, no doubt intended to cool his temper. The touch was so much like his Hutch’s that the effort worked. “Now wasn’t the time for a killing rage,” Starsky thought as the red haze lifted from his vision. It was the time to be clever, methodical, and firm in his commitment. He knew his Hutch had those traits in spades; he suspected this one did, too.

“You know him,” Hutch stated. “What’s the best way to find this Korby guy?”

“Every cop knows who the biggest criminals are – and they ain’t crime lords. The problem isn’t finding ’em; the problem is who wants to cross the Empire.” Starsky felt his face harden. And was surprised when he turned to look at Hutch and found his face held the same expression: determination mixed in equal parts with death.

“You were willing to burn down half of Bay City to find your partner,” Hutch pronounced. “What are you willing to do now?”

“Well,” Starsky said evenly, his anger channeled into action. “I figure if I take down someone dirty, say, every ten days or so, sooner or later I’m gonna get to someone that matters to Marcus Korby or Dr. Three-Cs Cohen or whatever he’s calling himself this week.”

“There’s a lot of dead bodies in Bay City,” Hutch reasoned. Starsky noted that Hutch wasn’t vetoing his plan. “Might take a while for someone to notice.”

“Not when you’re taking them out with a heavy, military-issued, .50 caliber anti-material rifle,” Starsky countered with a grin.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Saturday, 16 October 1978, J.C.

We’d discussed our next steps half the night, sharing my bed but not touching. Starsky was adamant that I needed “plausible deniability,” which would be easy to establish given my so called “medical” condition.

Then we went to work and picked up a brutal rape case: Lieutenant Dan Slate’s daughter, Leslie. Slate took justice into his own hands and shot Lenny Biggs dead in the hallway a few steps away from Dobey’s office. Of course, a half a dozen cops pulled ghost guns – small untraceable weapons, kept on hand for just such an emergency – and offered them to Slate to jam into to Biggs’ cooling hand, Dobey’s presence be damned. But it was Starsky’s hideout that Slate accepted out of all the options thrust upon him.

It would only be from reading the papers the next day that I learned about the assassination of District Attorney Arnold Rich from the Praetor’s Office, a well-known prosecutor who regularly refused to pursue rape cases, even if the girl in question was a cop’s daughter. This case must have reminded Starsky of that little factoid. Evidently, since the police had enacted their own strange justice, prosecution was a moot point. But knowing how Starsky thinks – strike that – getting to know how this Starsky thinks, it didn’t take much for me to figure out that Slate wouldn’t have had to shoot his daughter’s rapist if he’d had any past proof that the Praetor’s office would’ve taken care of business.

And you want to know the irony? We caught the assignment to catch Rich’s killer. Don’t see that case being solved anytime soon.

That was one corpse.

David Michahèl Starsky
                                                                                                                                                     Province of California, Bay City                                                                                                                                                        Wednesday, 8 November 1978, J.C.

Starsky was more tired than he should be for a guy who’d supposedly stayed home and slept all day so he could go undercover on a night op. But the alibi was just too good to pass up. He’d dropped the Deputy Mayor – a kiddie raper – right on the steps in front of the Hall of Justicia. This time, Starsky had to leave behind his Army-issue rifle with the serial numbers filed off; if he got caught with it on him, it was game over.

That was two.

He’d made his way back to his place, crashed, and slept like the dead until his alarm went off. He got up, drank two cups of cold coffee, then put on his best disco date clothes. He dressed in colors he knew his Hutch liked to see him in.

Hours later, after it was clear they weren’t going to draw out suspect Harry Ashford, the nutjob supposedly killing Monique Travers’ one-night stands, he’d sent Hutch home to get some rest, considering the man was falling asleep in the booth at the disco. The last thing Starsky’d imagined was that he’d go back to the precinct and mess around with the Identi-Kit and that old sketch from the SanFran PD. He wouldn’t know until the next day that Hutch had figured out the supposed killer was a dead ringer for Monique’s very religious older sister. In retrospect, it made sense; how many nutjobs were religious nutjobs? Probably fifty percent. He wouldn’t know until the next day that Hutch had driven by the sister’s house and rousted her for an alibi, which would prove airtight. But Starsky almost wouldn’t have a chance to ever know any of this.

Once he’d finished his stakeout with the stalking victim (having used her as bait, without compunction, to attract the killer), Starsky’d taken the woman home, perfectly aware she was attempting to seduce him. Well, nothing else had worked so far; maybe marking time with Monique at her place would spark Ashford’s interest. Not that Starsky would touch what she was selling with a ten-foot pole. She had him snowed good, though, slipping him a cup of her “special” chamomile tea, spiked with drugs that made him too loopy to fight back effectively when “Harry” finally made his terrifying appearance.

Starsky wasn’t one to run from combat. But, given the best he could do was little better than shamble and crawl, he would forgive himself – this time. Especially since the only person who mattered that saw him so compromised was Hutch. Maybe not his Hutch, but Hutch, nonetheless.

After his partner had cleaned Monique-Harry’s clock and handcuffed her (him?) to the wall, the best part of this crazy mixed-up case was Hutch’s embrace. They hadn’t touched each other since the middle of October. Now, half stoned, vision blurry, and more than a little sick to his stomach, Starsky reveled in the moment Hutch draped his arm across his shoulders, snugging him in close. He missed this: simple touch. They’d been handsy since graduating from the Police Academy. Became lovers a year later. Had taken their Theban vow a year after that. In that moment, he began to feel something like pity for Monique.

“Maybe, just maybe, you really can go crazy from lack of love,” he thought.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Wednesday, 16 December 1978, J.C.

“I couldn’t shoot her, Starsk,” I rattle. “I had her dead in my sights. But she was just a kid. Couldn’t have been older than fifteen.”

“You stupid fuck,” Starsky hisses, wadding up some random towel he’s found in the house and stuffing it in my jacket in an effort, I know, to slow the bleeding. I can’t help but groan when he presses down hard. I’m going to be black and blue, assuming I survive this.

“I’ve dropped three more bodies in the last thirty days,” Starsky continues, “and you can’t shoot one psycho punk? I don’t care if Babyface Finster is at a crime scene. If they got a gun, you take ‘em out. You fucking hear me?”

Nodding stupidly, I feel my world start to slip away.

“Hutch, stay with me,” Starsky orders, his voice consumed by anger, and maybe fear. Except this Starsky isn’t afraid of anything. “Don’t you dare die on me, asswipe!” His voice is far away as everything goes gray. He’s babbling about what a shitty Saturnalia gift a dead bastard of a partner would be. “We’re fucking fucked if you don’t fucking make it, you fucker.”

My loopy brain shoots off on a tangent, perhaps in an attempt to dodge the machinegun barrage of fuckity-fuck-fucks fired from Starsky’s mouth. Saturnalia? Doesn’t he mean Christmas?

When the world becomes black around the edges, I wonder if I’ll wake up. I kind of wonder if I even want to wake up in this place where everything and everyone is so cruel. Even my partner.

David Michahèl Starsky
                                                                                                                                                     Province of California, Bay City                                                                                                                                                        Friday, 18 December 1978, J.C.

“Who do you think I am – Übermensch? I shut down a theft ring in two days with nothing but that chick you assigned me as my ‘partner’ – one you well know is on the take – and now you want me to go undercover as some sort of salon freak in a fancy hotel? Fuck that, sir,” Starsky stressed, standing at attention in front of Dobey. “Not without my real partner, who, if you gave a damn, you’d remember is still unconscious in the hospital. Besides, everyone knows you don’t separate Thebans.”

“You’ll do what I tell you to do or I’ll break the snake across your back myself!” Dobey roared.

“If you think you’re man enough to do it, then do it,” Starsky shot back. He sketched a salute, muttered, “Vale,” and stomped out of his boss’ office. “I’ll take my stripes when I’ve closed the case,” he shouted over his shoulder.

Twenty hours later, Huggy radioed, “The Baron’s coming out the front entrance, disguised as a cop. He looks just like a po’ man’s Barry Manilous.”

“Bad day to write the songs,” Starsky mumbled from his sniper’s nest high in the building across the street. Settling the butt of the new rifle into his shoulder, he squeezed the trigger gently. A second later, before Starsky even heard the report from the shell, the Baron’s headless corpse tumbled to the sidewalk in a spatter of blood, brains, teeth, and skull fragments.

“Worst case of dandruff I’ve ever seen,” Starsky said out loud, chuckling at his own joke.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Saturday, 19 December 1978, J.C.

I hear a low moan. At first, I assume it’s me. God knows I’m hurting enough to moan. Yet I know I’m not hurting as bad as I could be. Must be on some heavy-duty painkillers, maybe even a morphine drip. Yeah. I’ve kind of got that glowy groovin’ feelin’ goin’ on. Definitely something heavy. I take a deep breath. Bad idea. The whole left side of my torso protests, like someone took a baseball bat to me. Did someone take a bat to me? I’m trying to remember when I hear that low, hurt sound again. It’s not me making it. At least, I don’t think it is.

Got to open my eyes.

Lids are so heavy.

I think I might have fallen asleep for a moment. Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t tell with my eyes shut. Are my eyes shut? Or is the room just dark? No. I’m in a hospital. I might be too weak to open my eyes, but my ears are working: there’s the ding of bedside monitors, then a woman’s voice paging Dr. Agarwal to pick up line four. Hospitals are never dark or quiet. It’s part of their sick plan to torture you while they supposedly heal you. That, and wake you from a perfectly good sleep to ask how you’re feeling. Thus, I stupidly detect that my eyes must be closed.

Third time isn’t a charm when I hear that hurt sound again. The suspense is killing me. I have to pry my eyelids apart. I have to know what’s going on.

This time I succeed. I bat my lashes a few times to beat out the grue, but now I can see I’m in a much darker room than I first imagined. The only light is coming from hospital monitors and through the slightly ajar door.

I want to lift my hand and pass it over my face, chest, and junk, just to make sure everything’s still there. I know I’m hurt but can’t immediately recall how it happened. And I can’t move my right hand, the only one I believe I might be able to get in motion, as my left side feels all out of whack.

Two olive-skinned hands, I now realize, are clutching my pasty right one. If that wasn’t enough to trap it, Starsky’s forehead is resting on top of his hands, further pinning mine to the maxi pad the hospital calls a mattress. He’s dead asleep. But I’m feeling more awake by the moment, and that’s not the only thing I notice.

His old blue windbreaker is off, draped across the sheet that covers my feet. Starsky is dressed in a white t-shirt, which is unusual. He’s far more likely to wear a white jacket than a white shirt; he likes to keep his colors next to his skin. Something else is odd, I think: his Smith & Wesson is on the bed, next to our tangled hands. I squeeze his fingers, hoping to gently wake him, but he’s totally out – no reaction at all except that breathy little “uhhh” he gives each time he exhales. I try to speak his name, but there’s not even a hint of spit on my leathery tongue.

I try to generate some saliva but give up when I see the three diagonal lines of dried blood surrounded by a halo of flamingo-colored serous sanguinous fluid. Yeah, I can sling their hospital lingo, given the many times Starsky’s been shot in the line of duty. It’s then I remember that I’ve been shot this time. Shot! By that girl! Stupid, Hutchinson, I berate myself. But if I had it to do all over again, I still wouldn’t kill a kid. I shake my head, dismissing the girl from my thoughts. I’ve got more pressing business. My partner is hurt. I look down. My left index finger is right next to the nurse’s call button. I focus, with everything I have, and just barely trip the switch.

It isn’t long before someone comes to stand in the doorway, making the room even darker.

“Detective Starsky,” an assured feminine voice calls out. “Detective Starsky, may I come in to check on Detective Hutchinson?”

The moaning stops. Starsky startles awake, his left hand closing around his piece, training it upon the shadowy figure in the entrance to my room.

“It’s Julia Drusilla, the charge nurse, Detective,” she says softly, but firmly. I have to admire the balls on the woman. I don’t know if I could’ve stood in that doorway, sounding so sanguine and professional, with a gun pointed at me. “We’ve spoken several times about your partner’s condition.”

There’s a pause. “Yeah,” Starsky grunts at last. “Come in.”

The shadow nurse materializes beside the bed as a no-nonsense looking matron in white scrubs topped by a sweater the exact color of Starsky’s eyes. She gives the immediate impression of someone who’s managed to keep her humanity despite the years: Drusilla still knows how to look genuinely concerned.

“What can I do for you, Detective Starsky?”

“I didn’t call you,” he says, voice hoarse.

“I-I did,” my scratchy throat coughs up.

Both Starsky and the nurse look at me, clearly astounded.

“Hutch! You’re awake!”

“Several hours earlier than expected,” Drusilla announces, sounding impressed. “We’ve been weaning you off the barbiturates that were keeping you in a medically induced coma. Your surgeons wanted you to have a few days for their work to heal undisturbed.”

Her statement sets off a hundred questions in my mind, but only one matters right now: how do I take care of Starsky?

“This Memor’ Hospi’l?” I slur around a sandpaper tongue.

“Yeah, buddy,” Starsky says, his right hand still gripping mine like it’s a bone and some rival dog is trying to take it from him. He almost releases it when the nurse offers me a cup with a straw; I can see that he’s itching to help but doesn’t want to make me look any weaker than I obviously am. It takes a couple of tries before I’m able to siphon up a sip of water more welcome than any wine.

“Nurse, can you page Dr. Franklin?” I ask, my voice still reedy but much stronger than before.

“Lochner and Gannon are your doctors, Detective Hutchinson,” says Drusilla. “Dr. Gannon is still on shift. Let me page him—”

“I want Franklin. Now.” I try to say it with force, but it comes out as a wheeze.

“It’s the middle of the night and I doubt he’s on shift,” Drusilla says, her protest one of logic and said without heat.

“Tell him,” I murmur. “Tell him it’s for Starsky and Hutch . . . and . . . and . . . I’ll make it worth his while.”

“Do what he says,” Starsky commands. “And shut the door on the way out.”

“She’s got a name, Starsk,” I husk out, and he lets go of my hand and brings the cup and straw to my lips. I drink gratefully, deeply, wanting to drown the sandpaper that is my mouth and throat.

“Take it easy, big guy,” Starsky says, his hand tenderly stroking the length of my neck. “There’s plenty where that came from. And I’m gonna get you something better – maybe some apple juice, if I can get that quack Gannon to write the order.” Starsky thinks a minute. “Who am I kidding? Gannon’s gonna write the fucking order or I’ll break his hand and see how he likes that.”

“Gently, partner,” I warn, equally gently, willing to cross this Starsky when I’m too stove up to be a threat. “I need these people, remember? And they go to school for, I don’t know, about twenty years to learn how to do this stuff. Let’s cut ’em a break and try to ask nice, eh?”

“I’ve heard of good cop, bad cop,” Starsky snorts. “I just never imagined I’d have a good-cop partner.”

“You’re a good cop, Starsk,” I say, pantomiming drinking so he’ll bring back the cup. “You’re just in a bad place.” I sip again, and this time my mouth feels like a mouth. “And you’re a good man,” I insist.

I should know. Anyone else on this world would have killed me outright at even the suspicion of being an imposter. How lucky to be the partner of a good, though very hard, man who uses his head as much as his heart.

David Michahèl Starsky
    Almost Two Hours Later   

Hutch fell back to sleep once Gannon had left after one) examining him; two) sending in a technician with a portable X-ray machine; and three) explaining the x-ray images to him and Starsky.

Evidently, according to the surgeon, Hutch had suffered a million-sestertii wound. The small-caliber bullet had to have been defective because, at such close range, it should have either punched though his chest, shredded his lung, and exited out his back in a handspan of gore; or pierced his lung, ricocheted off his shoulder blade to tumble inside his chest, tearing through vital organ after vital organ. Instead, the bullet had hit his third true rib, not even breaking the bone, spun along the path of the bone, and missed the lung entirely before lodging in his shoulder blade, not breaking that bone, either.

Gannon had operated through the bullet hole, digging out the tiny hunk of lead with an old-fashioned Spoon of Diocles, and delicately – as these things went – bandaged the opening left by the shell after he withdrew the tool. “Easily the least bloody gunshot wound I’ve ever treated,” he’d bragged.

“When can he return to work?” Starsky had demanded mere minutes after Hutch’s surgery ended.

“Two to three weeks for Detective Hutchinson’s flesh to knit tight,” Gannon had pronounced. “Then I’ll clear him for light desk duty, assuming there’s no infection. Then we’ll start him on physical therapy. Eight more weeks ought to do the trick, given how little soft tissue damage he has, with no major tendons involved. After that, it’s back on the streets for your partner.”

Starsky had encouraged Gannon to repeat the whole spiel to Hutch in his brief period of consciousness between coming out of the anesthetic and being put into the medically induced coma.

Starsky didn’t know who was more relieved: him or Hutch.

Now, he watched Hutch sleep. Starsky was tired. So tired. But if Hutch wanted to talk to Franklin, he would stay awake to greet the good doctor, lest their resident bought-and-paid-for sawbones choose to slink off to have a drink and conveniently forget that the nurse had called him.

Just when Starsky thought he couldn’t keep his eyes open another moment, the not-so-good doctor strolled into Hutch’s hospital room.

“I charge extra for house calls,” Franklin proclaimed, his voice loud enough to rouse Hutch. Starsky would be pissed, but, after all, it was Hutch who wanted to talk to the doctor, and for that the man needed to be awake.

“It’s a good thing I’m not home, then,” Hutch answered gravelly.

Starsky grinned. Fresh from a life-threatening wound and Hutch still had salt in him.

“Memorial should charge you two rent,” Franklin retorted, “taking into account much time you spend here.”

“Bay City gives this joint enough dough that we should have a bronzed suite with our names over the door,” Starsky sassed back, scrounging a little energy.

“What can I do for you, gentlemen? And don’t say ‘discharge him,’” Franklin said, first facing Starsky, then turning to Hutch. “I reviewed your chart, Detective, and you’re lucky to be alive, so don’t think you’re strolling out of here now. Not in the morning, either. I can fix a lot of things but I can’t discharge you. And why, might you ask?” Franklin sketched his thumb over his shoulder in Starsky’s direction. “If anything happens to you as the result of a premature discharge, your partner will conveniently forget he threatened me into releasing you early and send me to an early grave.”

“My,” said Hutch, his voice still gravelly, “aren’t we feeling spicy tonight? Last time I was here, you didn’t even talk to me.”

“Yeah,” agreed Starsky. “What’s got you so chatty?”

“Test drove and placed an order for the new Gladiac this afternoon,” Franklin said, his tone one of smug happiness. “And lo, I get a call from my two best customers later the same day. Looks like the down payment I need to drop off at the dealership will have to be in cash.”

Starsky internally rolled his eyes. But this was why they worked with Franklin: he was bought, paid for, and situationally aware enough to know who kept it that way.

“So, what can I do for you, gentlemen?” Franklin repeated, with the emphasis on the word can.

“You can start by treating my partner’s back!”

Surprised by the vehement tone, Starsky and Franklin turned their full attention on the man in the hospital bed. Met with a glare, Franklin returned the favor to Starsky. “What’s wrong with your back?”

Angry now, Starsky was glad he’d put his windbreaker back on. At least there was no visible evidence of a problem. “Nothing,” he said.

Like a stork at a tennis match, the stoop-shouldered doctor swung his gaze Hutch’s way. “What’s wrong with his back?”

“I don’t know, but it’s covered in blood,” Hutch said, looking Starsky dead in the eye. “And you’re going to let the doctor do something about it or, so help me, I’ll get out of this bed and hold you down for him.”

The image of Hutch, awake just two hours and weak as a twice-used tea bag, heaving himself over the bed’s guardrail and putting him in an arm lock bled off much of Starsky’s anger. Not that he was amused. He wasn’t. But that he knew Hutch – even this version of him – really would try to get out of his hospital bed and force him to get medical attention was, well, endearing, damn it.

“And don’t you dare look at me like I’m some sort of milquetoast,” Hutch barked at Starsky. “And you, Dr. Kildare, get some goddamned medical supplies in here and fix him.” This was accompanied by the legendary Hutchinson finger pointing directly at Franklin. “Snap to it. I’m sure we’d all like to get some sleep before sunrise!”

“Fine!” Starsky and Franklin spoke together. If either man were tempted to laugh, the withering look Hutch gave them was enough to quell that urge.

In the end, as graciously as he was capable of being – which was to say, not much –  Starsky removed his jacket and exposed his back to Franklin. When he moved to take off his white t-shirt, Franklin stopped him with a word.

“Don’t. I need to get some saline to soak this off. Otherwise, you’re just going to start bleeding again.”

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Sunday, 20 December 1978, J.C.

The better part of twenty minutes later, when it really is sunrise, I’m hurting, and I can tell that Starsky is, too, though he’s masking it well. As for the doctor, he might act like a hack – and probably is one if you catch him on a bender – but Dr. Franklin can still practice medicine with care and thoroughness . . . when the reward is high enough, that is. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m not keeping a careful watch as he treats Starsky, who stoically keeps as quiet as anyone can under the circumstances, which I suspect will be much easier once the doc injects my sort-of partner with a powerful painkiller.

“I don’t need that shit,” Starsky protests as the needle jabs home.

“Well, it was either give it to you or give it to me,” Franklin states. “And I suspect Detective Hutchinson, who’s now in possession of your firearm, would much rather it be you that took the injection. Am I correct, Detective?”

I nod once, saving all my strength to keep Starsky safe and comfortable. I wish I’d had the sense to ask him about Franklin’s reliability before conking out. Too late now, though, as the man’s here. I’ll just have to keep an eye on him myself.

“Let’s give that a couple of minutes to get into your system,” Franklin says. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Starsky snarls.

“These wounds need to be meticulously cleaned with warm water and mild soap to remove any dirt and debris. They’re not actively bleeding now, Detectives, but they will be by the time I’m done, so I’ll need to apply pressure to stop any new bleeding. And for that, I’ll need abdominal pads to soak up the mess.”

I feel myself getting woozy at the graphic descriptions, and even though it hurts, I pull up my left leg to rest Starsky’s semi-auto on my knee. I need the help to keep it steady.

“If any dead or damaged tissue is present, I will carefully remove it to prevent infection and promote healing,” Franklin explains to the partners, though drugged-up Starsky is starting to sway gently from side to side and probably doesn’t understand the doctor’s words. “Then I’ll cover the wounds with sterile dressings and send my slave by daily to change the bandages to maintain cleanliness and dryness.

“Now,” Franklin says to me, more urgently, “you’ll need to excuse me because if I don’t fetch a gurney soon, I’ll be treating your partner on the floor. And my knees just aren’t up to that type of field hospital work anymore – not when there’s a perfectly good gurney standing just outside this door.”

“Go. Go!” I tell him, afraid Starsky’s going to fall and crack his head, thinking there’s never a situation so bad it can’t get worse. “But you better come back fast.”

“I’ll make sure of that,” Nurse Drusilla announces, thoroughly startling both me and Franklin. She’s holding a tiny paper medicine cup in one hand and a chased and engraved chrome derringer in the other. “If you need the doctor held at gunpoint, so be it,” she says. “But you’re too weak to do the business. That’s why you’re in the hospital – so that you can get some skilled nursing care. And trust me, Detective Hutchinson,” she says drolly, “I’m very skilled with my two-shot derringer, which I keep loaded with hollow points for maximum damage.”

“If the firsh shot don’t take ’em out—” Starsky says from his teetering position.

“—The second one will,” Drusilla finishes.

“I ’ike ’ish nursh,” Starsky says, his slur more prominent than before. “Lesh keeb’er, Hutch.”

In the end, Franklin – under the charge nurse’s watchful eye and weapon – wheels in the gurney. Starsky falls face down on it, versus the floor, and I heave a sigh of relief, which sets my shoulder on fire.

“I think it’s time you had some pain medicine, too,” Franklin observes wryly.

“Which I’ve taken the trouble to bring with me,” Drusilla says.

“What is that?” I ask, not entirely suspicious, given her show of support, but needing to know, nevertheless.

“Paracetamol,” Drusilla answers, setting down the paper cup on the bedside table before picking up my water glass. “Same strength as what’s in your medicine chest at home.”

I peer into the cup and see that, sure enough, the tablets look just like regular acetaminophen. Gotta trust at some point, I say to myself. I tuck Starsky’s pistol next to my hip, where I can get it fast, and dry swallow the pills. Drusilla holds the water cup for me, so that I may take a sip. Her gun never wavers on Franklin.

“Why are you helping me? Us?” I ask.

“It’s obvious you aren’t going to work on getting better until he’s feeling better,” she answers, gesturing to Starsky with her chin. “I read your chart, too, and you aren’t the first set of Thebans I’ve dealt with. My own son is in the Theban Band, in the Army, putting down the rebellion in Vietnam. It’s sad his partner was killed by friendly fire. He’s not been the same since. So, you can see, Detective, I’m not unsympathetic to your situation.”

Thankfully, Starsky is out like a light before Franklin finishes soaking off his shirt with the sterile saline, prior to cutting it away. The rest of the procedure goes as Franklin described, and I find myself horrified by what’s been done to the man who, for now, is my partner. “Will that scar?” I ask.

“Oh, yes,” says Franklin.

“It’s meant to,” says Drusilla.

Once again, I find my stomach rolling over. “Why?”

Now it’s the doctor and the nurse’s turn to stare at me, incomprehension at my incomprehension self-evident. “Forget I asked,” I backpedal, but I note that while Franklin shrugs and returns to his work, Drusilla gives me a pointed and very cunning gaze.

Before long, Franklin finishes, gives Starsky a tetanus booster, writes a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics, washes his hands, then leaves the mess for the nurse to clean up. As he dons his sportscoat, preparatory to departure, he turns to me. “I realize neither you nor your partner is in any condition to go to the bank,” he says drily. “But you’ll be happy to know your credit is good with me, at least until he—” the doctor indicates Starsky with a tilt of his head “—is ambulatory. Tell him I’ll expect eighty gold aureus no later than Wednesday. I’ll pick it up at the usual place. I’ll tell Sweet Alice you said ‘hello.’”

“Eighty gold? Thief!” Drusilla hisses, once Franklin has cleared the room.

“Is that a lot?” I ask.

Drusilla eyes me strangely. “Are you from around here?”

“I had a head injury earlier this year,” I answer.

“It’s two thousand denarii,” the woman says, her outrage palpable. “You should have had me put a bullet in him. I would have taken care of your friend for no money.”

“I’ll remember that the next time I find myself in a similar situation,” I say, hoping like hell I don’t find myself in this kind of situation ever again. “Uhm, I don’t mean to be rude, but do I—?”

“Owe me a ‘gratuity?’”

“Yeah.”

“A ‘thank you’ would be appreciated, but it’s not mandatory.”

“Thank you,” I say, truly meaning it. “You know, I could ask you the same question. Are you from around here? You seem a lot less. . . .” I yawn tremendously before I can come up with the right word.

“Mercenary?” Drusilla suggests.

“Yes,” I say, utterly exhausted.

“Yeshua healed the sick for free,” she answers. “Why should I charge when He didn’t?”

I yawn again, wondering who “Yeshua” might be, but I’m too tired to puzzle it out. As if sensing my fatigue, she rolls the gurney next to my bed. Starsky is now close enough for me to touch him. Before I conk out, simply unable to stay awake a moment longer, I take his hand in mine, hoping I’ll wake up if someone tries to move him without my permission.

“Don’t worry,” Drusilla says. “I’m working a twelve. I won’t get off until noon. The nurse’s station is right outside this door. I’ll keep an eye on both you, and I’ll wake you before my relief comes on shift. Fair enough?”

“More than fair,” I mumble, and fall into a sleep so deep it might have been unconsciousness.

David Michahèl Starsky
  Five Hours Later 

Starsky was pretty sure the nurse had called his name three times before he woke completely. “What’s going on? Is Hutch okay?”

“He’s fine,” Nurse Drusilla assured.

“I’m fine,” agreed Hutch. “It seems we have a visitor.” He indicated the door with a slant of his head.

Still on his stomach, face down on the gurney, Starsky craned his neck, peering intently at the shadowy figure of a man – one that he recognized even in light-limned outline.

“Dr. ‘Cohen’ claims he’s here to consult on your case, Detective Hutchinson,” the nurse said, looking both wary and weary, it being near the end of her shift. “He doesn’t have admitting privileges at Memorial, so I had hospital security search him. He’s unarmed.”

Guys like him are never completely unarmed, Starsky thought, but kept his opinion to himself. He started to lever himself off the gurney, but Drusilla, Hutch, and Korby objected in harmony. A short and animated discussion ensued, and it was decided that Starsky would stay on the gurney, but the back would be raised so that he could sit up and keep an eye on Korby. “So nice that I get a say so,” Starsky groused aloud, gingerly settling himself upright. His back hurt – badly – but now it was the kind of pain that energizes versus enervates a man. Only then did Hutch hand over Starsky’s semi-auto.

“I’m heading into report, but I’ll be back at midnight tonight,” Drusilla said to Starsky and Hutch. She bent and whispered in Starsky’s ear, “Don’t trust the day shift charge nurse. Lucretia would crucify her own mother, if the price were right.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Starsky murmured in reply. “That’s for having my back . . . uh . . . all kidding aside.”

“I’m sure,” Drusilla said with a smile, closing the door behind her as she left.

Now it was time to deal with his Army handler.

“Go sit in the chair by the window, Korby,” Starsky instructed. “And don’t even so much as tickle the blinds if you wanna keep breathing.” It was all too easy to imagine another sniper on Korby’s roster perched in a nest a thousand yards out, ready to take out two heads – one blond, one curly – at the first break in the blinds.

“Do you like my new hairstyle?” Korby asked, affable, as he took his seat.

“You have to have hair to have a hairstyle,” Hutch answered sourly, his tone readily indicating he was vastly unamused.

“I have some hair,” Korby rebutted, rubbing the shadow stubble. “It’ll grow back soon enough.”

“Your hair might grow back, but your head won’t,” Starsky said, chambering a round. The slightest twitch of his finger would propel the bullet forward at roughly seven hundred miles per hour, which equated to twelve hundred feet per second, which meant Korby wasn’t dodging any bullets at a mere seven feet away. “You got exactly one minute to make a great case on why I shouldn’t kill you.”

“Because, Sergeant Starsky,  if you kill me, you’ll never get your partner back.”

“The army taught me never to negotiate with kidnappers,” Starsky said coolly.

“I was never in the army,” Hutch butted in. “Give him a chance to talk. I want to hear what he has to say.” Starsky shot a glance in his direction that was part exasperation, part anger.

“Do what the man says,” Starsky ordered Korby.

“I see by your lack of surprise, Detective Hutchinson, that you’re aware there’s been a transmutation.”

“If by that you mean I’m in the wrong fucking place, then, yes,” said Hutch. “I’m aware of your damned ‘transmutation.’ The next thing I want to hear is how to reverse it.”

“Elius,” Korby answered.

“That a person, place, or thing?” Starsky wished more than anything that he could put a bullet in the man’s brainpan and end what was already turning out to be a shitty day, in a shitty week, of a very shitty year.

“A prodigy, gentlemen,” Korby said. “Little more than a kid, really. Aged twenty and he already has two doctorates – one in mechanical engineering and the other in quantum physics. Do either of you know anything about quantum physics?”

“Fuck this,” Starsky growled. “He’s stalling.”

Starsky felt Hutch’s right hand grip his thigh. Then the grip softened, came as close to a caress as possible in front of an enemy. It was enough to ground Starsky, help him dial it down a notch.

“I think I can speak for both of us when I say we don’t know jack about physics, quantum or otherwise,” Hutch said grimly. “But the next time you verbally bait us, I’m going to let Starsky blow your kneecaps out. You might be the smartest guy in the room, but you’ll also be the shortest one, without any legs. You follow me?”

“Clearly, Detective,” Korby said, his voice now a monotone. “My job has some bearing on your situation. May I be allowed to elucidate?” he asked, his tone polite.

“Yes,” Hutch responded, keeping his hand on Starsky’s thigh.

“I am a scientist, gentlemen,” Korby began, settling deeper into his chair, as if he were a marketplace storyteller warming to his subject. “But rather than being a great scientist in one particular area, I am, instead, a generalist in a society that only rewards specialists. I think you would both agree this is so?”

Starsky nodded, and he could see Hutch mirror his movement from the corner of his eye.

“My specialty is tracking down talent, finding value that others would dismiss out of hand. I found you, didn’t I, Sergeant Starsky? And I gave you what you didn’t even know you wanted. Really, that’s the secret to success on our world: knowing what others want and finding a way to give it to them in such a way as you benefit, too.”

“Tell us about Elius,” Hutch commanded, no nonsense.

“I found him in the Bay Area, a fringe member of an already fringe troop who call themselves the Fundamental Fysiks Group.”

“Next thing you’ll be talking about the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers,” Starsky scoffed.

“Nothing so droll as that,” Korby said, then began to lecture. “One of the tenets of quantum physics is that particles can be in multiple states at once – that connections can exist between distant objects.”

“Go on,” Hutch said, his voice strange in Starsky’s ears. “Hutch is scared,” he thought. “He must be following this shit closer than me. I don’t have enough sense to be scared.”

“The Fysiks Group focuses their studies on quantum entanglement,” Korby continued. “That and a liberal application of LSD and Eastern Mysticism. Some of them advocate that two or more particles can become linked in a way that their fates are intertwined, regardless of the distance separating them.”

Hutch’s fingers dug into the long slabs of muscle in Starsky’s thigh. Starsky just gritted his teeth and took the pain, if this was what Hutch needed to hold himself together. “Finish the story,” Hutch hissed. Starsky’d never heard such pure hatred in this man’s voice before. In truth, he wasn’t sure this Hutch was even capable of the emotion.

“Elius is a practical young man,” Korby soothed, his gaze directed at Hutch. “He had no time for mysticism. He simply wanted to find a way to transport grain and other bulky edibles across vast distances, quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, the Science and Technology Directorate thought his embryonic technology would be much better suited if one could transport troops – say, across a continent. Or even from a space station, like Skylab, to the surface of a planet.”

“A man is a lot more complicated than a bushel of wheat,” Hutch seethed.

“Not on a subatomic level,” Korby countered. “In fact, we’re all made up of the stuff of stars, dead for billions of years, but living on through us. So no, Detective Hutchinson, a man is not so complicated as you might think.”

“Yet, somehow, you assholes fucked it up, didn’t you?” Starsky stated more than asked.

“Obviously,” Korby admitted readily. “It seems that fate – for want of a better word – plays a part after all.”

“You can’t transport a man across long distances,” Hutch declared.

“No.”

“Then where the fuck do you transport him to?”

Unable to take the strength of Hutch’s grip any longer, Starsky carefully transferred his gun from his left hand to his right, never letting Korby out of his sight, then he laid his free hand atop Hutch’s, gentling him down wordlessly, by touch alone.

“Somewhere . . . else,” Korby hedged.

“Can I shoot him now, Hutch? Please?”

It was just the right thing to say, Starsky thought, feeling the iron grip release, relieved to have broken Hutch’s horrific trance. Starsky was doubly relieved when he heard Hutch laugh in response.

“I didn’t know you knew the word ‘please,’” Hutch said, flexing the circulation back into his fingers.

“You know what? I didn’t either,” Starsky said with a grin. “I’m thirty-five and I can’t ever remember saying it before – not even to my mother, Gods rest her soul.”

“I’m not afraid to say ‘please,’ gentlemen,” Korby cut in. “If you please, I’ve come to broker a deal with you.”

“What sort of deal?” Hutch was no longer in a humorous mood.

“In the fullness of time, I’ll see to it that you, Detective Ken Hutchinson, are returned to your Earth in your dimension.”

“What do you mean by ‘dimension’?” Starsky knew he wasn’t a stupid man, but this talk of other worlds and dimensions was waaaaay too Twilight Zone for his comfort level. A really good show, one he always made a point of catching on late-night TV – a good show, that is, until it starts becoming your life, he thought bitterly.

“You mean an alternate Earth,” Hutch deduced. “An Earth where the Roman Empire did fall. An Earth with states instead of provinces. An Earth that doesn’t crucify crooked cops in front of the downtown courthouse or euthanize the homeless.”

“That’s correct,” Korby agreed. “You figured that out on remarkably few clues. Bravo! May I ask a personal question, Detective?”

“You can ask,” Hutch said, his tone not giving much hope that he would answer.

“You’ve done an extraordinary job keeping your headstrong partner in line—”

“Hey!” Starsky protested, but Korby kept talking.

“—until this last month. May I ask what changed?”

“What do you mean by keeping Starsky in line? I’m not his keeper,” Hutch said darkly.

“Now I’m disappointed. Your counterpart would’ve understood my question.”

“You’re talking about my little killing spree, aren’t you?” Starsky chuffed a snigger. “You must’ve been paying closer attention than I thought if you crawled outta the woodwork after just five bodies.”

“Looks like you were right, Starsk,” Hutch said with a shake of his head. “That was one way of getting your attention, Korby. If that hadn’t worked, and you hadn’t turned yourself in to us, we would’ve had to quit the force and come looking for you ourselves.”

“And that’s exactly what I wished to avoid,” Korby said. “Though I am curious, Sergeant Starsky: Why did you kill that beautiful woman – the cover girl model? That doesn’t fit your profile of corrupt politicians and the heads of organized crime families.”

“That was just a little side earner,” Starsky answered. “I’ve been on a tight budget since you skipped town. This chick had cancer and paid to get herself offed. I obliged.”

“Interesting,” Korby muttered, his brow furrowed, his iron-gray mustache twitching, as if in deep thought.

“You weren’t the only mechanic interested in the contract,” Korby announced after a moment, apparently letting the matter go. For now, anyway. “It seems you had some competition.”

Yeah?” said Starsky. “Who?”

“Allen ‘Genius’ Walker – a man driven by a powerful guardian spirit. A man much like yourself, Sergeant, if rather more prosaic.”

“Humph,” Starsky grunted. “If Genius Walker is creeping around Bay City, we gotta get his ass off the street before he kills an innocent civilian.”

“I second that emotion,” Hutch piled on.

“Then you’ll both be happy to know that I’ve taken the trouble to frame the man for Sergeant Starsky’s crimes.” Korby reached for the bag on the floor at his feet.

“Uh-uh-uh!” Starsky advised. “Shove the bag over here with your toe. I’ll pick it up, after you go.”

“As you wish.” Korby complied with Starsky’s orders.

“So,” said Hutch, his face and his voice matched for weariness. “When can you make the exchange? No offense, Starsky,” he said, looking sorrowfully at his partner on this world, “but I just want to go home.”

Starsky nodded. A part of him cared deeply for this man, but he wasn’t his Hutch. And he had to have his Hutch back, the sooner the better.

“Answer the man,” Starsky said to Korby.

“Elius is working on an improved transportation device,” Korby obeyed. “The one we used on Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson was so crude as to be dangerous.”

“But you didn’t let that little fact get in the way of your little experiment, now did you?”

“We all answer to those above us, Sergeant Starsky. I do the best I can with the cards I’m dealt. I try to stack the deck in my favor, and in the favor of my operatives, like yourself. But even my hands are tied by orders from on high.”

“When?” Hutch repeated.

“When Elius is done. I estimate three to five months. And once the new device is complete, we must wait for the appropriate atmospheric conditions. So, sometime in May.”

“Big storm?” Starsky guessed.

Korby bobbed his bald head. “Accompanied by sufficient solar flare activity. Fortunately, 1979 is predicted to be, pardon the pun, a stellar year for solar winds and flares. It’s the reason why Skylab’s orbit is decaying so rapidly.”

“I saw that in the papers,” Hutch said.

“Same here.” Like Hutch, Starsky read The Bay City Acta Diurna carefully. You never knew what clue you might find in a want ad or an editorial or an in-depth report.

The three of them sat quietly, Starsky noted. Companionably, almost. Starsky turned to Hutch, the silent question in his eyes: “Do I kill this fucker and we go find this Elius character on our own, or are we gonna trust this asshole to do what he says he’ll do?”

“Sooner or later,” Hutch said aloud, “you gotta trust someone.”

“Damn,” sighed Starsky softly. “You really aren’t from around here.”

 

Chapter 12:
My Brother, My Enemy

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Saturday, January 6, 1979, A.D.

Hutch was trying to keep his hands to himself. He truly was. But he wasn’t finding it easy. He really wanted to beat some sense into the meathead standing across from him. He might have done just that if Starsky hadn’t walked in on him and his brother. Hutch and Nicky Starsky were exchanging heated words about Nick’s little friends-and-family weed business to the tune of two kilos, which equated to felony possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. That was a minimum three-year sentence, if you were lucky, which the younger Starsky obviously wasn’t.

The partners locked eyes. Starsky’s were sad, like a puppy that’s been kicked for the first time and had its perfect trust destroyed. Hutch had tried to warn him earlier, outside Frank Stryker’s club, The Velvet Slide, hoping to cushion the blow that anyone with any sense could see was coming. But this world’s David Starsky had some strange ticks. First, there was that jewelry heist lookout chick, up to her neck in the crime, and he just couldn’t see it. And now Nick, the eponymous two-bit hustler. He was no different than that pick-pocket punk Marty, who Hutch had slammed into the wall outside Fever when he’d had more balls than sense and took a swing at Starsky. “Nicky and Marty even share the same tailor,” Hutch thought. “John Travolta on the cheap.”

“I should leave, Starsk,” Hutch said, knowing that some things needed to be said in private. He also knew that if he were back on his Earth, he could slap Nick’s ears back. The guy was Starsky’s kid brother, but Nick was no kid – he was on the slippery slope of thirty. The only thing the petty criminal had going for him was that he just happened to have an amazing brother who was a cop. On Hutch’s world, he was almost certain he wouldn’t have any trouble convincing Starsky that, after they’d administered a thorough and very professional beating to help Nick wise up, they’d have dropped him off at the airport and sent him on his way. But not before giving him very clear instructions: if they heard even a whisper of trouble connected to the Starsky name out east, Nicky boy would soon find himself buried next to his mother in Mount Carmel in Queens.

But he wasn’t home, and this Starsky – while not exactly soft – certainly wouldn’t agree to roughing up his brother, even though it would be to his benefit. Especially not as long as his mother was still alive.

Once again, Hutch was trying to keep my hands to himself. Really he was. But this time he failed. As he headed out Starsky’s front door, he pressed his hand into the small of his back, silent comfort, letting him know that he understood the next few minutes weren’t going to be easy.

Dave Starsky
A Few Moments Later

“I look at you and I see one of the mugs on the street I grew up on,” Starsky says, facing off with the man who’s his brother in flesh, if not in spirit.

“I’m twenty-eight years old,” Nick sasses, oblivious to the pain pouring off his older brother. “Back east, I sell some stuff that falls off the back of a truck. So what? I deal with poor people who can’t afford retail.”

“And you’re proud of that,” I say, trying to keep cool while sadness and rage war in my heart. I’m holding on to my temper with both hands and doing a good job of it, too, if I say so myself.

“Yeah,” says Nick, his face as calm as my voice. “And if I don’t know the difference between right and wrong right now, you’re not gonna teach me.”

“Who did?”

“I had all the best teachers,” Nick brags. “All the guys you left behind when you moved out here. Guys like Tony Marcano. He’s like an uncle to me. Guys like Big Billy Hayes. Guys like Spider McGuiness. All those guys – I know ’em all personally now. All of ’em. And you know something? They know me!”

“You’re real proud of that, huh?” I feel my heart twist in my chest, the anger melting the iron that had formed over it long ago, when it came to considering Nicky and his path in life. I know that Ma had made a hard choice: she could afford to send only one of her children away from the old neighborhood, give that son a chance to make something of himself. At least, that’s what she told me when I asked years later why she’d sent me away. I’d never asked, and she’d never said, but I always wondered if she’d picked me because I was the oldest and the worst behaved, and kept Nicky because of his tender years, or if she’d picked me because she saw so much more potential in me than in her baby. Mothers know who their kids are, even from a young age. I never asked that question, either, because I didn’t want to know the answer: There was gonna be a loser, no matter whose name she revealed.

“That’s what makes me what I am,” Nick boasts, like he’s hanging out with the rich and famous, part of the “it” crowd, admired and desired just for the company he keeps.

More like rich and infamous, I almost say.

“And what I am has nothing to do with what you are! And you know why?”

“Why?” I know why, but I feel Nicky deserves a chance to say it out loud, this thing we’d kept quiet about between us for so long.

“Because you were never there for me!”

He’s not wrong. But I say nothing. Just stand there like a dummy and watch my little brother grab his jacket and storm out. On my worst day, I admit I’m a better brother to Hutch than I’ve ever been to Nick. Sure, I’ve lent him money I knew I’d never get back. Bailed him out of jail long-distance a couple of times and even paid for the attorney who got him a suspended sentence – a mere slap on the wrist. And just like Nick has never learned from his mistakes, I realize I haven’t, either.

The only real brother I have is Hutch . . . and I’ve fucked that relationship up, too.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Sunday, January 7, 1979, A.D.

“What’re you going to do?” Hutch asked, keeping his tone neutral. They were, after all, in the middle of the bullpen at work, surrounded by cops, and Hutch didn’t want to be the one to share Starsky’s secrets with half the precinct.

“Find him, I guess,” said Starsky quietly.

Hutch couldn’t understand why Starsky was so quiet. He’d seen him get mad at Nick in the past. Well, he’d seen his Starsky get mad at Nick, and that had led to a battle royal fistfight. He’d pulled his partner off his brother before he ended up killing him.

As for finding Nick? “You can’t find someone who wants to stay lost,” Hutch thought. “And Starsk, you lost Nick a long time ago.”

Eight Days Later
Monday, January 15, 1979, A.D.

“We made good time,” Nick said as they pulled into the “No Standing” zone in front of the American Airlines’ door. “We’re here early. Hey, why couldn’t David drop me off? Some kinda cop thing?”

“Yes,” Hutch replied, putting the LTD in park before turning on the mars light and placing it on the roof of the car. “Some kind of cop thing. He’s being measured for an undercover suit. Rush job. Custom made.”

“Cool,” Nick said. “Hey, do you guys get to keep your undercover clothes?”

“Most of the time we just find stuff for the job at Goodwill,” Hutch replied after a moment. “Dobey keeps us on a tight budget.”

Nicky laughed. “You wouldn’t catch me dead in a thrift shop. Why the big exception, if your captain is as cheap as you say he is?”

“Well, sometimes, you have to bite the bullet and get a specialty item made to order.”

“What’s David getting – something great for a date night, I hope? He needs to get married soon or Ma’s gonna to start her Jewish mother routine on me. And let me tell you something for nothing: I ain’t ready to settle down.”

“He’s getting a Golden Angel outfit made,” Hutch said, his tone even frostier. While the District Attorney’s office spent the last week working out a deal with Nick Starsky in exchange for his testimony against Frank Stryker, Hutch and Starsky had been up to their ears in wrestling intrigue as someone looked to put Buzzy “The Golden Angel” Boone into an early grave.

“Yeah? Like the famous wrestler? Cloth of gold, white wings, halo, the whole works?”

Hutch sighed internally. He wasn’t surprised that Starsky’s idiot brother was a wrestling fan. “The one and only,” he replied, wondering if Nick would even care if he knew that Starsky was about to put his life on the line by impersonating the Angel in order to smoke out Buzzy’s would-be killer.

“You two have the craziest jobs,” Nick said derisively. “So, uh, thanks for getting me to the airport.”

“I wasn’t doing you a favor,” Hutch stated flatly. “And I think you’re smart enough to know it, so quit faking it with me. Let’s have a real conversation.”

Nick dropped his hail-fellow-well-met shtick. “Say what you gotta say and then let me get my bag out of the trunk of this rolling wreck.”

“You caught that little maneuver?” Hutch asked. “You’re not as stupid as I thought.” Casually, he reached across the seat and tightly grasped Nick’s left pinky and ring fingers. With no more effort than it took to break a pretzel rod, he jerked the two digits up and backwards, dislocating both phalanxes at the metacarpus line.

“What the hell?” Nick screamed, his voice two octaves higher than normal as he huddled against the door in an effort, no doubt, to put as much distance between Hutch and himself as possible. “What’s wrong with you, Hutchinson? Are you crazy? You can’t still be mad I beat you and Huggy at pool . . . are you?” This last was said softer, almost politely.

“Maybe he really is smarter than he acts,” Hutch thought. “I don’t give a damn about pool,” he explained to Nick, “but I care very much about the man I call my partner.”

“Yeah? Wait and see what he does to you when I tell him you fucked up my hand,” Nicky threatened, cradling his fist against his chest.

“He’s never going to find out about it.”

“Oh, yeah? How come?”

“Because the human hand has twenty-seven bones, and I only dislocated two of them,” Hutch said, his voice smooth as silk. “The human body, in toto, has 206 bones. Let me tell you something you don’t know about me, ‘Nicky,’” Hutch said, his voice dropping lower. “I’ve studied advanced interrogation techniques. I know the weak spot on every single one of those 206 bones. If you breathe one word about our final encounter here at the airport, I will personally come to New York and take my time breaking every one of those bones until you die of shock or an embolism caused by the release of too much bone marrow into your circulatory system. Now tell me,” Hutch asked, his voice softer and even lower, “do I sound like a man who knows what he’s talking about?”

“Yeah,” Nick answered, mirroring Hutch’s volume. “You do. The only guy I know who talks like this is Big Billy Hayes back home. His, uhm, specialty is getting people to ‘talk’ about things they don’t wanna talk about.”

“I know who Big Billy is,” Hutch said calmly, well aware of the nation’s Most Wanted List. “On a boring Tuesday, I make him look like a little schoolyard bully. So, please, allow me to make myself clear: you will never reveal to Starsky, or your mother, anything about our little fare-thee-well. You’re going to apologize to Alma, in writing, for every rotten thing you’ve ever done to her. Next, you’re going to write your brother a letter. In it, you’re going to list, in stunning detail, every shitty thing you’ve ever done to him, and you’re going to beg him to forgive you. Tell him that, if he does, you’ll keep your nose clean. Go legit. Get a job. Pay your taxes. Be a good citizen. Lastly, you’re going to stop hanging out with punks like Big Billy Hayes. You follow me, so far?”

Hutch could see the whites surrounding Nick’s hazel eyes. He looked scared, as he should have been. He was smart enough, apparently, to be scared but not smart enough to stay that way. And it was time for Hutch to fix that.

“Nick, what do you think would happen if you told Starsky about our little altercation today? And don’t lie to me.”

“I think he’d drop you like a hot potato,” Nick said. “After he knocked your lights out.”

“He might surprise you,” Hutch thought. “Starsky just might surprise us both. But let Nick have his little fantasy. Blood might be thicker than water, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it, if I were Nick.”

“I want to make sure you understand the situation you find yourself in,” Hutch said slowly, enunciating each word carefully. “The only person on this planet that I give a damn about is Dave Starsky. Do. You. Believe. Me?”

“Yeah,” Nicky said, his facial expression hinting that he thought he was getting the upper hand again.

“Then, it stands to reason, if anything destroyed my relationship with your brother, I’d have nothing to live for. Are you still following me?”

“I don’t know,” Nick confessed. His countenance had changed to one of worry.

“Allow me to explain it to you,” Hutch said. “If you ruin my friendship with Starsky, I will personally come find you. I’ll bide my time, make some preparations. Eventually, I’ll kidnap you. Then I’ll torture you for as long as I can make it last, which will be a very long time. And then, when I’m ready for you to die, I’ll sew you and a cinderblock into a bag and will drop you in the closest river. And before I do that, you’re going to thank me for putting you out of your misery, a misery that will make these two dislocated fingers seem like the minor inconveniences they are. Do you have any questions?”

“N-no,” Nick stuttered, face pale, a shiver running though his body.

“Are you going to need any reminders?”

“No, s-sir.”

“Good.” Hutch reached out and snapped the fingers back into place, the action accompanied by a hoarse scream from Starsky’s little brother.

Just as Nick’s good hand scrabbled for the door handle, Hutch’s right hand shot out and grasped him by the nape. “We’re not done talking, boy.”

“I-I t-thought we were.”

“Nope.”

“O-okay. I’m listening.”

“When you go into that airport, are you flying back to New York City?”

“Yes?” Nick’s affirmative lacked affirmation.

“Are you sure about that?” Hutch asked, his voice infused with skepticism.

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“Anybody meeting you at La Guardia, Nick?”

“Just a couple of the guys,” he answered, no longer on the verge of tears. Foolishly. “You know, give me a ride back to the neighborhood, get a slice, and have a few beers. Sort of a welcome-home party.”

“These wouldn’t be a couple of Tony Marcano’s guys, now would it?”

“Yeah,” said Nick. “Hey, how’d you guess?”

“I didn’t have to guess,” Hutch said. “You see, I’m a cop. And cops know things. Things like, when you rat out a guy like Frank Stryker, guys like Tony Marcano find out.”

“Ah, fuck, Hutch,” Nick said, his face filled with terror. “You didn’t tell Tony I’m a snitch, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Hutch said agreeably. “But I wouldn’t have to. Organized crime has infiltrated the district attorney’s office for as long as there’s been a district attorney. It’s even rumored some of the judges are on the take. I can guarantee you that, about five minutes after he was booked, someone was calling a very hush-hush number and letting the voice on the other end of the line know that a certain Nicholas Marvin Starsky was turning state’s evidence on Stryker, so that they would be the first to collect the gratuity such a choice tidbit of information would naturally generate.”

“Jeez,” Nick breathed shakily. “You don’t know these guys. They’ll—”

“—Kill you?” Hutch let go of Nick’s collar and gave him a shove towards the door. “Then I guess I don’t have to worry about you snitching on me to Starsky now, do I?”

“No! You don’t get it,” Nick protested, scooting away from the car door and getting closer to Hutch on the big bench seat, as if the man who’d promised to kill him not five minutes ago would now protect him.

Hutch believed he’d finally got Nick to understand what was at stake.

“You sound like a guy who doesn’t want to die, am I right?”

“Damned right!”

“Then you’d be willing to consider an alternate plan to certain death, correct?”

“Yes,” Nick agreed. “Anything.”

Hutch slowly reached inside his jacket, giving every impression he was about to draw his gun, intentionally ramping up Nick’s fear level, but, at the last second, pulling a folded manilla envelope from his inner breast pocket instead. He extended it to Nick.

“Inside this envelope is a one-way plane ticket to Duluth. That’s in Minnesota. You’ll also find an address for an apartment where the rent and utilities are already paid for three months. Lastly, you’ll find a name and a phone number for an older gentleman I know. His name is Jack Mitchell, Sr., and he owes me a favor. He’s very well connected and owns several businesses in town. If you ask nicely and act like a decent human being, he’ll probably give you an entry-level job and a fair chance to work your way into something you can be proud of someday.”

“Wow. You’d do all that for me?”

“I wouldn’t waste a bullet on you, kid,” Hutch answered truthfully. “But that man I work with – the man you treat like the bank of Nick Starsky when it’s convenient and an impediment to your fun when it isn’t – that man I would do anything for, including doing my best to save your silly, useless life. You dig what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” Nick answered dully. “I dig it.”

“Now, get out of my car.”

“What about my stuff?”

“You think I don’t know about the leftover weed you packed in your carry-on?” Hutch laughed humorlessly. “As they say from your neck of the woods, ‘fuggeddaboutit!’”

Nick had barely shut the LTD’s door before Hutch peeled out, leaving behind a former punk now sufficiently cowed to keep his mouth shut and maybe, just maybe, get his act together before some real criminal – somebody a lot better wired than Frank Stryker – decided that Nicky the cop’s brother was just too much of a liability.

Hutch didn’t give a damn one way or the other about Nick Starsky, but he loved his Dave Starsky in every way a man can love another man. And if scaring this Starsky’s brother straight would make his life easier, happier, then Hutch was willing to do a lot worse than dislocate a couple of fingers and put up a deposit and a little rent on a studio apartment for ninety days.

Hopefully, Nick had learned his lesson. Hopefully, Alma and Starsky would reap the benefits of what he did that day. And maybe, just maybe, that was another reason why he’d been sent here – not one his superiors back home could have imagined, but one that Hutch himself could believe in.

And be proud of.

Dave Starsky
Tuesday, January 23, 1979, A.D.

“I saw us on the tube the other night,” Huggy says, setting down two beers and pulling up a chair.

“What?” I’m startled by the man. Was a thousand miles away, totally up in my head. Not paying attention to anything but the empty beer glass in my hand – that and the repetitive loop of the Space Invaders intro on the cocktail table game I’m sitting at. I’m too bummed to play, despite it being one of my favorites. I swear, I’d bet any amount of money that Huggy ordered this game special for me, knowing he’d make back his investment super-fast while doing something nice for a pal.

“I said,” Huggy repeats, swapping out my empty glass for a full one, “that I saw us on TV the other night.”

“Us? On TV?” I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Was watching a rerun on KBEX’s Spotlite on Sports.”

“Ahh,” I say, understanding at last. “Did I look as stupid as I felt in that gold lamé catsuit?”

“Yeah,” Huggy concedes with a snort. “You looked pretty stupid.”

“Geez, Hug. Lie to me, will you?”

“Friends don’t lie to friends. And even if we weren’t friends, you and Hutch don’t keep me on payroll to lie, and I’m here to truth you something, Starsk.”

“What you gotta truth me about, Huggy?” I ask, even as I wish I hadn’t come out tonight. But I was too bored and antsy to stay home. Screw that. Not bored. Not antsy. Depressed. Hutch hasn’t been right for the last two weeks, just when I needed him most. I gotta decompress about Nicky, get some stuff off my chest with someone I trust to not only get me, but to keep his mouth shut after the fact, too. Doesn’t look like that someone’s gonna to be Hutch. I’ve tried every night since we closed the Boone case to get an invitation to my partner’s place. I remember when I didn’t need one. Could just stop by, day or night. Looks like I might have to settle for Huggy. Damn. What a crappy thing to think about my second-best friend. And there I go again, sounding like some kid in junior high! What grown man says, “second-best friend”?

“Earth to Starsky,” Huggy calls out softly, just loud enough for me to hear him over the customer noise in The Pits, but not loud enough that anyone else but me can hear what he’s saying.

“I’m here,” I say, forcing myself to be in the moment versus so far up my ass that I can’t see nothing.

“I’ve been given notice that my lease ends June thirtieth of nineteen-hundred and seventy-nine.”

“What lease?”

“The lease here,” Huggy says.

“The Pits?” I ask, shocked.

“That’s where you’re sitting, right? The Pits,” Huggy reiterates. “I gotta close this joint.”

I’m surprised. It’s not the first time Huggy has relocated the ol’ watering hole. But I thought he liked being this close to the precinct house. Me and Hutch sure like having The Pits this close to work. “Why, Huggy? You found a better location somewhere else?”

“Nope,” he says laconically. “And not for lack of trying. I been uptown, downtown, crosstown, all around. I even looked at a real fire hazard of a dump out on the ’pike. Nothing but hypes and rats as far as the eye could see, and still I couldn’t afford the rent.”

“What’s the rent here?” I ask, curious. I mean, I thought Huggy was doing pretty good. He used to have a dozen side hustles, but this last year he’s been keeping close to home, taking it easy, or so I thought.

“Don’t matter what’s the rent here, even if I could afford it, which I can’t,” Huggy says, a bitter tone creeping into his voice. “The new landlord don’t want me here no more, so it’s goodbye Huggy and goodbye Pits.”

“Damn,” I say, stunned. “How long has this been going on?”

“Didn’t Hutch tell you anything? I was sure he would,” says Huggy.

“Hutch knew about this?” I’m stupefied.

“He’s known since last September.”

I do the math on my fingertips. “That’s over five months,” I say. “You gotta be mistaken, Huggy. Hutch wouldn’t keep something big like this from me.”

“He might if he didn’t think it was that big of a deal,” Huggy says coolly.

“Ouch,” I say. “That’s cold.”

“You feelin’ all warm and fuzzy about Mister Caterpillar Lip?”

I immediately jump to Hutch’s defense. “You bet your life I am!”

“Oh,” says Huggy, his tone facetious. “That’s why you two have been hanging out here so much lately, right? Or have you been stepping out on me at some new disco instead of throwing a friend some trade?”

“Man, seems like all we do lately is work,” I complain. “I can’t tell you the last time we visited Kiko and Pete, or played basketball with Jackson, or brought Lisa a gift and had a coffee with Mitzi . . . or . . . or . . . been to the Marshal Center for Exceptional Children.” This last I have to grind out around a boulder in my throat. What’s happened to me and Hutch that we don’t keep up with the people and things that matter? When did I become the kind of guy that would stop supporting Terry’s old school? What’s wrong with me?

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Starsky,” Huggy says.

“What?”

“I said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’”

Must be more messed up than I realize – I didn’t know I’d said that last bit out loud.

“But I think there might be somethin’ wrong with your partner.”

Now there’s a topic that has no trouble grabbing my full attention. “What do you mean?”

“Tell me I’m mistaken and I’ll go back to tendin’ bar.” Huggy takes a long, slow sip of his beer. “Well? We talkin’ or am I tendin’?”

“I don’t get what’s going on with him, Hug, but he’s not right,” I say at last, acknowledging the big blond elephant that’s not in the room.

“It’s about time you noticed,” Huggy says, his voice a strange mixture of triumph and dejection. He digs into his pocket and slots two quarters into the machine. “I’ll go first.”

“Whatever,” I say. I take a deep drink of my beer, needing time to think. Huggy is a Wiz at Space Invaders, so I know it’ll be a long time before he gets “sat” and it’ll be my turn. “You know, these last two weeks, I’ve been trying to get a word in edgewise with him about Nicky. I mean, my brother drops outta sight, and next I get this weird letter where he’s asking me to forgive him for being a crappy brother, and all I wanna do is just have a pizza and a beer and hang out with Hutch like we used to and talk, but I can barely get him to give me the time of day at work, much less afterhours.”

“Are you for real?” Huggy asks, glancing up at me, his face almost a snarl of bewilderment. He turns his attention back to the game. “Somethin’s wrong. Been wrong for a long time.”

“I’m just talking about since Nicky left.”

“I’m talkin’ about since he got out of the hospital.”

“Nah, that ain’t it. He’s fully recovered from the gunshot wound. All his doctors say so.”

“I’m talking about when he got out of the hospital last August,” Huggy corrects.

Six months, I think, flipping the date book in my mind. “You’re talking about the Electric Slide he danced with Mother Nature? He’s over that, too.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Damnit!” The tiny “explosion” tells me it’s my turn to go and invade space.

“You’re off your feed tonight,” I tell Huggy. “I can’t remember the last time the aliens got your laser cannon.”

“Don’t change the subject,” he says. “Do you have any idea what’s goin’ on with Hutch?”

“If I had a clue, do you think I’d be sitting here with you playing video games?” Momentarily stumped, I turn my attention to the game, my heart racing in time with the aliens’ doot-doot-doot sound effect, as the more of them I destroy, the faster the rest of them come after me. It’s not long before one of them gets off a lucky shot around the center-most block house and takes me out.

“So,” I say. “What are you gonna do about The Pits?”

“I guess I’m gonna have to take a look at my ol’ neighborhood,” Huggy answers, his long thin fingers light on the game controller. He’s killing aliens like he does it for a living. “That or get a job tendin’ bar for someone else.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” I say.

“Which one? The ol’ neighborhood or workin’ for the man?”

“Both,” I say. “Hug, you been your own boss too long to give up being an entrepreneur now.”

“I hear you. Guess I’ll have to hope for a miracle.”

“Like me becoming a millionaire?” I feel a sheepish grin spread across my face, still a little embarrassed that I’d actually thought my 93-year-old great uncle’s passing would make me a rich man.

“That’d be good for starters,” Huggy says, his attention steadily focused on that fast-flying saucer trying to obliterate his ass.

“I hope you know,” I say, sincerely, “that if I had two nickels to rub together, I wouldn’t hesitate to give one of them to you.”

“I know,” says Huggy. “Just like I know you know I didn’t bring up my money woes to put the squeeze on you.”

I polish off the last of my beer, watching him go to town on the aliens.

“So,” Huggy says, after he gets sat. “What’re you gonna do about Hutch?”

“Nothing I can do – at least, not ’til he’s done with this latest undercover gig.”

“What’s our blond centurion up to?”

“He’s working an angle on some mobster’s sister,” I say.

“Sounds like more your kind of thing.”

“Nah. Not this time,” I say. “The chick is some kinda lounge singer in a mobbed-up club. Blues. Jazz. Stuff like that. Perfect for our resident ‘Music Man.’ Hey, can you keep your ear close to the ground for anything concerning Joe Finch, Harry Owens, or his sister Maryanne?”

“Joe Finch?” Huggy whistles, then grimaces when his laser cannon gets blown to smithereens. “Heavy hitter, man. I hope Tall, Blond, and Broody is being careful, ’cause Joe Finch’ll kill you soon as look at you. It won’t matter if Hutch is undercover as a priest – if Finch don’t like you, he’ll rub you out and forget about you before your body turns cold.”

“Yeah, I know his rep,” I tell Huggy.

But what I’m thinking is, Thanks, Hug. Like I needed one more thing to worry about my distant partner – distant in just about every way a man can be while still living and breathing.

 

Chapter XIII:
Frater Meus, Inimicus Meus

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Sunday, 11 February 1979, J.C.

“Avum subi similia,” Starsky mutters.

He and I are sitting quietly in the Torino, still parked in the Huntley’s suburban driveway, dawn coloring the sky. It’s the end of my first full day at work, now that I’ve been cleared for active duty.

“What?” I ask, puzzled.

“That old saying,” Starsky says. “Remember? Birds of a feather flock together? My mother used to say it all the time.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Mine, too, only hers was the less prosaic, ‘You are known by the company you keep.’”

“You think Luke and Doris Huntley are still solid?” Starsky tips his chin in the direction of the cottage where my old partner lived with his wife.

“If you’d asked me yesterday, I’d have said sure,” I answer. “They were always the happiest of couples. At least, back where I’m from, they seemed okay. I’m not so sure about here.”

“Every relationship has rocky patches,” Starsky says, turning the keys and revving the Torino’s engine, neighbors be damned. “Even if things are flakey at home, work’ll be a cake walk. All Huntley’s gotta do is chill in the hotel, read some magazines, watch some TV, play some solitaire, and make sure Palmer doesn’t accidentally drown in the toilet. In a couple of days, Palmer testifies, and then he’s not our division’s problem no more. Luke can go home and patch things up with the missus.”

“You got it all figured out, eh, Starsk,” I say, not bothering to hide my annoyance. “I was partnered with the man, and it’s no exaggeration – he taught me a lot in my first plainclothes gig. Luke’s not embellishing when he says I’d have never made Sergeant First Class in seven years without him.”

“That’s bullshit,” Starsky opines, pulling out of the driveway. “My partner – the other you – is the best damned cop on the force. He didn’t need anyone’s help to climb the ladder. Except mine. And I gave that gladly, freely, each step of the way. And you ain’t so different from my Hutch. I’d be willing to bet, even on short acquaintance, that you’re twice the man Luke Huntley is, any day of the week.”

I don’t quite know what to say about that, but a part of me is astonished that Starsky has just given me a compliment. Not just astonished; this is as close as this man has come to expressing overt affection, something I didn’t know I needed until I didn’t have it anymore. A part of me, these past months, feels like a seed in the desert, waiting, waiting – what feels like years – for the rain to come. Then the day comes when the rain returns. I didn’t know it before, but my Starsky is the lifegiving rain. And I miss it – miss him. God, I miss him. And while this Starsky is doing everything he can to keep me alive, it’s not enough and never will be. If I find myself stranded here, I think I’m going to be hard-pressed not to eat a bullet.

Not a pretty thought on a bright Sunday morning. But there it is.

Almost as if Starsky has read my mind and wants to gentle his twitchy, not-partner down, he says, “You wanna get something to eat at Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles?”

“Only if they have genuine maple syrup,” I stipulate, giving Starsky a break, considering how hard he’s trying to take care of me.

“I got you covered, partner,” he says. “Nothing but the best for you.”

David Michahèl Starsky
  Monday, 12 February 1979, J.C.

“What a pooch screw of a day,” Starsky thought.

Palmer got offed on Luke Huntley’s watch, and Huntley was nowhere to be found afterward. Then he and Hutch discovered Jimmy Lucas, Reuban’s top enforcer, shot dead in a cheap motel – and Hutch was having kittens, likely knowing how bad that looked and smelled.

Starsky was just coming back from the lab with the rush ballistics report that showed Huntley’s pistol was the murder weapon, not looking forward to having that conversation with Hutch. But it was going to have to wait a minute because Hutch was on the phone, looking all serious. When Hutch hung up, he gestured for Starsky to follow him.

He’d already guessed it was Luke Huntley that Hutch had been talking to on the bullpen phone, but his partner waited until they were in the Torino and off police property before filling him in on the conversation. Starsky wasn’t surprised by Hutch’s big reveal.

“Huntley wants your help ripping off Reuban and then taking him out.”

“That’s what he told me,” Hutch said, his voice sour.

“Why the rip-off?”

“Says Reuban took advantage of Doris, got her mixed up in a high-stakes poker club,” Hutch answered. “Now his wife of twenty-five years has gambled away their life savings and Luke wants his money back.”

“Okay.”

“‘Okay’ what?”

“I say, ‘okay, I’ll help Luke take down Reuban, and then we pick up a sack of hundreds on the way out the door.’”

“Starsky,” Hutch cried out, “that’s crazy! We’re cops, not stick-up men and murderers.”

“Do you think Reuban should have recruited a cop’s fifty-something wife into his little sewing circle of five-card draw?”

“No,” said Hutch. “But there’s this thing called free will. I don’t get the impression that Doris had a gun held to her head when she went over to Reuban’s little club to play cards.”

“I’m gonna call bullshit,” Starsky said. “No, wait a minute. You did get a degree in psychology at the collegium where you’re from, right?”

“We just call it ‘college,’ but yeah. A Bachelor of Science in Psychology.”

“Well, I don’t have a fancy degree, but I know a lot about addiction. Guys like Reuban can smell weakness a mile away. Know who they can hook and how. Lonely woman with a big diamond engagement ring and no man around to have her back? Husband not even on the scene enough to notice she’s out gambling half the night away? She was targeted, Hutch. Just like Ben Forest and his goons targeted you. You sold out Jeanie Walton for a fix. The only difference between your situation and Doris’ is that she ain’t a six-foot-two bruiser that had to be tied up to be hooked. All she needed was a couple of mixed drinks and the occasional winning hand to make her feel special. Tell me I’m wrong, college boy.”

Hutch’s blood ran cold at the mention of Forest’s despised name, at Starsky’s harsh – though accurate – assessment of the situation. “It’s not the same,” he ground out. “She gave consent to be there.”

“Oh, so, if an abuser – let’s say a thirty-year-old man – flatters a fourteen-year-old kid that’s starving for attention, sometimes literally starving, and he picks that kid up, takes him or her out to a burger joint, buys ’em food, gets ’em little gifts, and then convinces that kid that going ‘all the way’ with their ‘special’ friend is okay, that’s not a crime? You down with that, Hutch?”

“That’s a crime and you know it! There’s a reason why we have age-of-consent laws on the books. A kid’s mind just isn’t mature enough to make that kind of call.”

“And if the part of the brain that throttles down risk-taking behavior, like gambling or drinking or sex, is damaged, which we both know happen with addicts, what then? Is it okay to take advantage of Doris just because she’s old and lonely and – for all intents and purposes – abandoned?”

“You’re twisting things around, Starsk,” Hutch exclaimed, hands caressing his temples. “Let’s say you’re right, that Doris’ is. . . .” He struggled to find the right word. “Doris has, due to circumstances beyond her control, an addictive mindset. That’s for a jury to decide. Not me and you. And certainly not with guns in a warehouse full of Reuban’s goons. If we walk in there with weapons drawn, we’re the bad guys.”

“We pulled the rap sheets on all of Reuban’s crew,” Starsky protested. “Each one has a record as long as my arm. You good with letting these punks roll in and kill Huntley just because he wants his life savings back? It’s not like Doris had his permission to gamble it away. He earned that money. It’s his. Are you gonna let five guys rub out your old partner without evening up the odds a bit?”

Starsky watched as Hutch’s left hand sank into his hair and gave a hard tug, as if he were trying to wake himself up from a nightmare. “Luke was like the older brother I never had. You don’t even know the guy, Starsk!” Hutch protested. “Why would you get involved in the first place?”

“He’s really torn up about this,” Starsky thought, astonished. “You,” he said simply. “He matters to you. He helped you when you were young and wet behind the ears. Kept you alive. I think it’s time somebody repaid the favor, and I don’t mind it being me. On the other hand,” he said, “you’re gonna stay in the car and call for backup if you hear a bunch of shooting, and Huntley and I don’t come out after it stops.”

“Why?” Hutch asked, wary.

“Because if you get killed, I don’t get my partner back,” Starsky stated firmly, having long since been briefed by Korby about the balance of power with the “teleporter,” for lack of a better term. Without this other Hutch, alive and well and available for the transfer, Starsky would never get his Hutch back.

“You’ll have to chain me to the bed to keep me from backing your play, Starsky,” Hutch said, his voice heated. “I’m not some hothouse flower that has to be protected.”

Starsky was thinking that chaining Hutch to the bed might not be a bad idea. His body craved the release he could only get with his partner. Sure, he’d picked up a girl or two for one-nighters, even took a call girl upstairs at Huggy’s once, but that was just the body’s requirements. For satisfaction, total satisfaction, he needed his partner, who fed his mind and his soul, as well as his body.

“No more psycho-kid pacifism?” Starsky asked, still not having forgiven Hutch for getting shot smack dab in the middle of Saturnalia.

“Baby Face Finster had better watch out.” Hutch drew a cross over his heart with his finger. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Take it back, Hutch!” Starsky demanded, appalled at this strange incantation, making the sign to ward off the evil eye. “Words have power! Take it back now or I’ll handcuff you to the steering wheel!”

“Okay, okay,” Hutch said placatingly. “Keep your shirt on. It’s just something little kids say back home when they make a promise.”

“Sounds more like you’re daring Death to take a look at you,” Starsky grumbled. “As Papa Theodore would’ve said, ‘It’s bad juju.’”

“I can’t believe you, Starsk,” Hutch scoffed with a rueful shake of his head. “You’re getting bent out of shape over a kid’s promise line and in the next breath you’re invoking that freaky witch doctor.”

“Button it up,” Starsky warned, pulling into a warehouse parking lot. “We’re here.”

“Luke is expecting just me, twenty minutes from now.”

“He might as well know I’m here,” Starsky reasoned. “I don’t want to get hit by friendly fire.”

“So, what’s our play?”

“For your sake, I’m willing to try to take out Reuban and his goons without a bloodbath, but we may not get that choice, Hutch.” Starsky paused. “If someone draws down on you, I’m taking ’em out. No appeal, no parole. You get me?”

“I get you,” Hutch said thoughtfully. “And I feel the same way.”

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Thirty Minutes Later

“Shoulda known it was going to turn out like this,” Starsky says to me. I’m kneeling next to Luke’s body, amidst the detritus of five other dead men: Reuban and all of his hired muscle.

“Well, at least we got Luke’s money back,” I say, knowing I sound wrecked, tragic, as the fingers of my right hand close Huntley’s eyes.

“You know, Doris is just gonna blow it on cards,” Starsky tells me, his voice of strange combination of gentleness and severity. “She’ll be broke in a month. A month after that, she’ll be homeless. She’s too old to turn tricks or survive in Shit City on her own. Reckon we’ll be attending a second funeral pretty soon.”

I kneel up and get to my feet, brushing the dust off my jeans. “That’s why we’re not going to give it to her. We’ll put it in a living trust and she’ll get a monthly living stipend. Between that and Luke’s pension, and eventually his social security, she might do okay.”

“She might,” says Starsky. “If not, it won’t be for lack of trying on your part.”

“You want to hide the cash while I call this in?” I ask.

“Sure.”

As I turn to leave the warehouse, Starsky’s hand shoots out and grabs the sleeve of my jacket. “Hutch, you know this was the best outcome, right?”

“Is that what Reuban would say?”

“The world is full of guys like Reuban and his merry band of assholes,” answers Starsky. “No one’s gonna shed a tear over these scumbags. Luke taking out Reuban is probably gonna save a thousand lives from addiction, poverty, and misery.”

“I suppose,” I admit half-heartedly.

“Can you at least try to hear what I’m saying?”

“I’ll try.”

“Every shot you fired today was in self-defense,” Starsky says passionately. “I know you care about right and wrong and free will and all that stuff. Well, these assholes came here to kill Huntley, and they would’ve, too, if we hadn’t been here to back him up. They threw down first and got what they had coming to them. If it hadn’t been us today, it could’ve just as easily been us tomorrow, or Simmons and Babcock the day after, or any of a dozen other cops the day after that. Don’t you see, Hutch?” Starsky brings his other arm up, grasping me by both shoulders. “They were bad, heavy dudes. And this is what happens to bad, heavy dudes. I-I just don’t want you . . . losing sleep . . . over these creeps. You get me?”

“I get you, Starsk,” I say, grasping his shoulders in turn. It feels like the right thing to do. To show, rather than tell, that I understand what he’s saying.

For a moment, we stand there, looking at each other, consuming each other with our eyes. If this were my Starsky, I’d take a chance and lean in for a kiss. But he’s not. So, I don’t. I break free of Starsky’s embrace and hustle towards the car, eager to get the machinery of death moving, eager for this shitty day to end. The only thing I’m not eager for is the death notification with Doris.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Sunday, 3 March 1979, J.C.

“Get hooked up with that your partner of yours, Hutchinson, and find some excuse to get Eddie Carlyle in here.”

“A pleasure, Captain,” I say to Dobey.

“And a word of caution, detective: Carlyle is no yahoo tanked up on beer, with some Saturday Night Special in his pocket,” Dobey pronounces grimly. “He’s a well-tuned killing machine. A top-notch assassin.”

“Well, what do you think we are, sir? The school crossing guard?” I salute and vale Dobey, and leave the captain’s office to find Starsky, who’s gone off in search of a doughnut. With any luck, I won’t run into Joey Carston while still on the prowl for my partner. I probably shouldn’t bust Starsky’s chops – it can’t be easy having a sixteen-year-old kid with a runaway crush madly pursuing you.

I scan the bullpen, don’t see Joey or Starsky, so that means Joey has split and Starsky’s still in the cafeteria getting some fresh pastry. If I hustle, I can catch him downstairs and we can head right out to the hotel and, hopefully, arrest Carlyle. I grab my jacket and make for the stairs. I’m just passing the candy machine when I hear a strange noise from the supply closet. I’m about to blow it off when the sound is repeated, this time more clearly.

“Don’t,” says a girlish voice. “Stop!”

That sounds like Joey. I pull a U-turn and try the knob of the supply closet door. Locked. Just then, I hear a frightened squeal, and I’m poised to kick in the door when Minnie Kaplan comes rushing up.

“Don’t, Hutch,” she says. “I have the key. Be ready!”

Minnie slots the key in the lock and yanks the door open. What I see inside makes my blood boil.

“Get your hands off her, you sonofabitch,” I bark. I lean in and grab Officer Hardy by the collar, even as I place my right hand over his gun, just in case he gets the bright idea to draw it. I needn’t have bothered.

The idiot is laughing, arms over his head in a parody of a perp caught red-handed.

“Hey, hey, Hutch,” says Hardy jovially. “Ease up, will you?”

It’s then I see Joey, for just a second, even as Minnie is moving forward, taking her into her arms. Tears are running from the kid’s wide eyes, her mouth a terrified “O.” Christ! Joey’s jeans are unzipped and her shirt is untucked. Minnie shields Joey her from my eyes and Hardy’s with her own body. I move to put Hardy in a one-armed stranglehold; one-handed, I release the safety strap on this asshole’s service revolver and throw it on the floor.

“Minnie, police that up for me, will you? And don’t bother giving it back to Hardy until Starsky says he can have it back.”

“Now, wait a minute,” says Hardy, a little less jovial at the mention of Starsky’s name. “You wouldn’t rat out a fellow officer, would you?”

I don’t dignify this with an answer. Never releasing my stranglehold, I frog-march Hardy to the men’s toilet and slam him into the full-length mirror, smashing it to smithereens with his face.

“Fuck you, Hutchinson,” Hardy brays nasally, his nose broken and his face covered in a dozen tiny cuts. “What’s wrong with you?”

“She’s just a little girl!”

“Looks like a fine piece of woman flesh, if you ask me,” Hardy says with a leer, his teeth slimed with blood. “What’s the big deal? Do you and Starsky share her? What’s one more?”

“One more word out of you and I’ll cut your throat,” I say, and I think I mean it.

“If he won’t,” says Minnie Kaplan, pushing upon the men’s room door, “I will.” She draws her service dagger and uses the tip to dimple the flesh under Hardy’s chin. I tighten my hold, warning Hardy that I can choke him out with ease.

“What was I supposed to think?” whines Hardy. “She’s always coming by, mooning over Starsky, who doesn’t give her the time of day. I figure, if she likes cops, she won’t mind if I cop a feel.”

“You are so screwed, you simple fool,” hisses Minnie.

“What do you mean?” Hardy snuffles loudly, the blood filling his sinuses, having nowhere else to go.

“That ‘mooning’ little girl comes from the old patrician Carston family,” Minnie intones. “Her mother is as rich as Crassus. She’s wealthy enough to buy the judge, the jury, and the courthouse around them. What verdict do you think will come back if you’re brought up on charges of assault?”

“W-well, you both heard her,” Hardy sputtered. “She wanted it. She was saying, ‘don’t stop.’”

“That’s not what I heard,” I say through gritted teeth. “Is that what you heard, Minnie?”

“No, it is not,” she says, allowing her knife to slightly nick Hardy’s skin.

“The way I see it,” I say, still grinding my teeth to keep myself from screaming at him and drawing even more attention to the situation, “you’ve got three choices: Minnie and I can arrest you and you can take your chances in the courts. Minnie, can you remind me what the punishment is for child sexual assault?”

“Castration and twenty years hard labor.” She says it with a smile, as if she might enjoy neutering Hardy herself, right here, right now.

“But if that happens, Joey’s reputation might be damaged,” I argue, my voice serious, as if I’ve just thought of this potential problem. “Oh, but wait a minute! We don’t have to worry about this case going to court!”

“W-why not?” Hardy has been pale and thoughtful since mention of the word “castration.”

“What do you think is going to happen to you when Starsky finds out what you’ve done?”

Minnie’s smile is a broad sneer. “You don’t know it, Hardy, but Starsky likes and respects that girl. That’s why he’s never laid a hand on her. And you can damned well believe that the least he’ll do to you is chop off your hands for touching her.”

“That’s the least he’ll do,” I affirm. “So, as far as I’m concerned, Hardy, your second choice is to wait around for Starsky to maim and probably kill you.”

“You s-said there’s a third choice?”

“Go to Dobey and tender your resignation immediately,” I say. “Then get in your car and get out of town. Starsky and I are in the middle of a big case, so that should give you a couple of days. You might be able to cover your tracks by the time he’s able to come after you.”

“But remember,” cautions Minnie with that same wicked smile painting her face. “If he catches you, he’ll make castration and hard labor seem like a happy ending to the sad little story of your sad little life.”

I let go of Hardy and he scuttles past me and Minnie, nearly falling on the mirror debris scattered atop the tile floor. He opens the men’s room door so quickly and clumsily that it hits him in the face, inspiring a squeak of pain. Then he’s gone.

“Can you take Joey home and explain things to her mother?” I ask Minnie.

“Of course,” she says. “You sure you don’t need my help explaining the situation to Starsky?”

I wish, I think wistfully. “No. I’ll take it on the chin.”

“Hopefully, not literally, handsome,” says Minnie, her hand coming up briefly to caress my cheek. “You’re too pretty to mar with scars, Detective Hutchinson.”

“From your lips to the Gods ears,” I say, realizing this is the first time I’ve ever said that phrase – and that I actually mean it.

David Michahèl Starsky
 Twenty Minutes Later

“So,” Starsky said as soon as he put the Torino in drive. “You gonna tell me what happened while I went on my doughnut run, or am I gonna have to play twenty questions?”

“Do you actually play twenty questions here?” Hutch asked.

“Of course we do,” Starsky stated emphatically. “What do you think we are – barbarians?”

“No, of course not,” Hutch said, but Starsky could hear the sarcasm lacing Hutch’s words.

“Before I tell you what happened, just remember that our only lead in this case is Carlyle,” Hutch said. “If we don’t arrest him at his hotel, we’ve pretty much blown it. And I think Dobey will shoot us himself if we screw this up.”

“How so?”

“Cap gave me a ‘word of caution’ regarding Carlyle,” Hutch said. “When was the last time he gave us a warning, like he cares what happens to us?”

“He cares, Hutch,” Starsky said. “We make him look so good on paper that the brass thinks he’s a superstar. Dobey’s case closure stats are crazy high, and we’re a big part of his success. As soon as you’re ready to make captain, he’ll be promoted to commander – assuming his fat ass doesn’t have a heart attack before then.”

“I’m not even sure I want to take the lieutenant’s exam,” Hutch said.

“You – I mean my Hutch – will take the lieutenant’s exam, and soon,” Starsky avowed. “That was the big unsaid thing between me and my Hutch. He’s ripe for promotion. Me, not so much.”

“Why not?”

“I like the rank where I am. I’ll probably transfer to S.W.A.T. when Hutch gets promoted, get to use my wet work skills every day,” Starsky answered. “When Hutch makes lieutenant, he’ll be taking on more supervisory stuff – put that logistical brain to work. I know he’ll keep his hand in on the bigger, higher-profile cases, but we won’t be working together day to day anymore. I’m what’s holding him back. He thinks our Theban vow means he’s gotta stay at my side. I been trying to get him to understand that he’s always by my side, even when he isn’t there.”

“That’s heavy, Starsk,” Hutch says. “And you’ve told him this.”

“Not ‘told’ him with words, but, you know, showed him,” Starsky huffed.

“If you told him with your dick,” Hutch said, his tone dubious, “I can guarantee you he’d be too distracted to take in much of anything else.”

“Maybe you got a point,” said Starsky. “It’s just that I’m allergic to soapy—”

“Scenes,” Hutch finished.

“Damn! You’re so much like him!”

“I think I am him,” Hutch answered, “just brought up in a different universe.”

“So, you gonna tell me why you’ve got blood on your sleeve and bits of broken glass in your hair and on your shoulders?”

Starsky listened as Hutch described – as clinically as possible – what went down with Hardy, Joey, and Minnie, but he could tell Hutch was deeply affected by the scene. That alone forced Starsky to dial down his own righteous anger, at least for the moment.

“How far did he get – stink finger?” Starsky used the crude cop term for actually reaching inside a victim’s clothes and touching his or her private parts.

“No. Minnie talked to Joey and she said Hardy was still trying to struggle her out of her jeans. He manhandled her and scared the hell out of her, but we stopped him just in time,” said Hutch, his tone equal parts anger and misery.

“What’s got you feeling so miserable, Hutch? I can hear it in your voice.”

“Truth be told, I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t shoot me over my little solution to the problem,” Hutch said.

“I could never shoot you or my Hutch,” Starsky asserted. “I mean, have a knock-down-drag-out, maybe? But not over a judgement call like this. I like your catch-and-release solution. When I get my Hutch back, I think we’ll take a vacation – go hunting, if you catch my drift. Child molesters don’t change, Hutch. I don’t mind Hardy running for a while, looking over his shoulder in fear of the wrath of Starsky, but I don’t want him left in the wild too long to hurt someone else’s kid. I’ll take care of the problem, myself, at the right time. Besides, you and Minnie can’t be cutting someone’s throat at the station. IA would’ve been all over you, and Joey’s name would’ve ended up in the papers.”

“I thought you’d be mad at me,” Hutch muttered, looking out the passenger window, obviously avoiding eye contact with Starsky.

Starsky reached out and laid his hand on Hutch’s thigh, hoping to soothe the man so very much like the man he loved and missed with all his being.

“You did good, Hutch.”

“Thanks, Starsk.”

They drove the rest of the way to Carlyle the Hired Killer’s hotel in comfortable silence, Starsky’s hand never moving from its station on Hutch’s leg. Nevertheless, Starsky couldn’t help but think, “Two more months. Korby says sometime in May we can attempt the switcheroo. It can’t come soon enough – for this Hutch’s sake and mine.”

 

Interlude: Persona Non Grata

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Saturday, April 1, 1979, A.D.

Finally, they’d caught a case more like what Hutch was used to back home: motivated by enough cash to change lives; complicated by divided loyalty; with right and wrong so interwoven that you couldn’t tease out the guilty without destroying those more innocent, because everyone lived in a world where it was impossible to be wholly guiltless. He’d already pulled J.T. Washington’s jacket. Forty arrests for gambling? That made no sense to him. Gambling was a harmless vice that everyone – even the Emperor – took part in. Yes, there were gambling addicts back home, as in their last case here with Doris Huntley, but they tended to self-destruct pretty quickly, and usually with little harm to society as a whole. Hutch’s inclination was to concentrate on the rip-off artists who busted up the card game and killed Boseman in the process. Starsky seemed intent on vilifying Huggy, and Hutch couldn’t figure out why.

“Huggy’s a bad liar,” Starsky said after the man’s abrupt exit from The Pits.

“Maybe he never had a good enough reason before,” Hutch answered.

“I can think of a good reason, and so can you,” Starsky huffed as they exited through the delivery door that led to the alley and Hutch’s LTD.

“Of course we can,” Hutch said. “J.T. is his old mentor, so Huggy probably feels that he deserves a break. But Huggy won’t sink himself in the process, due to his highly developed sense of self-preservation.”

“My point exactly,” said Starsky, getting in on the passenger side as Hutch slid behind the wheel. “So, when were you going to get around to telling me about Huggy’s landlord-slash-money problems? It’s been six months.”

Hutch thought back to that odd first week on this world – no Starsky at his side, missing his home and his Starsky, if truth be known, and trying his best to lay down the groundwork necessary to survive here and accomplish the mission without blowing his cover. Huggy had talked to Hutch about the landlord doubling his rent, but since he’d never brought it up again, Hutch assumed he’d found a solution. Back home, Huggy would have killed the landlord and hoped for a nicer heir. But here? Huh. Hutch guessed here-Huggy’s options were a lot more limited, in view of the strictures of this world.

“I figured he’d gotten a handle on the situation,” Hutch now told Starsky. “I figured if he wanted you to know, he’d tell you himself.”

“He’s one of our best friends, Hutch! How could you keep something like that from me?”

“If he’s one of our best friends, why do you seem so determined to vilify him for this murder?” Hutch asked. “We both know there’s no way he was the shooter, and it’s highly unlikely he was at the card game, given we rousted the place, and it sure looks like we netted the entire card cabal. What’s the crime here?”

“Obstruction of a police murder investigation, for one,” Starsky answered indignantly. “Huggy was lying when he provided Washington with an alibi, and you know it.”

“Everyone in that neighborhood tells white lies to get friends off the hook with the cops. You can’t tell me that you think ol’ J.T. killed Boseman.”

“J.T.’s illegal card game led to the murder of an innocent man,” Starsky argued.

“Our salt-and-pepper rip-off team was a crime waiting to happen,” Hutch fired back. “They’re responsible for the murder of Boseman. If it wasn’t the card game, it would’ve been the liquor store on the corner, or the gas station the next block over, or that soul food café across the street. Boseman could have been shot there getting a cup of coffee, just as easily.”

“I don’t get you, Hutch,” Starsky said, looking at him suspiciously.

“I don’t understand you either, Starsk. Seems pretty cut-and-dried to me. Let’s go back to the station and see if the computer has spat out a list of likely S&P rip-off teams. There’s the heart of this investigation – not some little side hustle Huggy has going, you dig? Besides, if Huggy had been in the old neighborhood, I’m sure he had a perfectly logical reason.”

Starsky harrumphed grumpily but finally relented. “Huggy did tell me the other night that he was going to scout out possible Pits locations in his old stomping ground, since he couldn’t find anything uptown.”

“There, you see? A perfectly logical explanation.”

“I can think of another perfectly logical explanation for Huggy to get involved in this case,” Starsky said.

“I’m listening.”

“There had to be at least ten grand in that jackpot – enough money for a decent down payment on a place Huggy could buy. That’s the best way to make his landlord troubles go away.”

“Okay,” Hutch said, pulling into the precinct’s parking lot. “What if Huggy’s ‘private eye’ persona comes out and he finds the killers and takes the cash before we do? What would be so bad about that? And what if he’s not looking for the money to benefit himself, but to care for J.T. in his old age? Does that make a difference in your mind?”

“No,” Starsky said, sourer than before. “That money belongs in the policeman’s fund.”

“Did you feel the same way about the money we won in Las Vegas during the strangler case? Should that $23,000 have gone into the policeman’s fund, too? Or don’t you think Vicky’s kid needed it more?”

“There’s no reasoning with you today,” Starsky grouched.

“Is it because I’m right and I’m handing your ass back to you?”

“Dream on, sucka,” Starsky sassed him, slamming the car door way too hard.

Hutch shook his head ruefully, thinking this was the most honest conversation he’d had with this Starsky so far. For once, his world’s mores fit the situation far better than the one he was living in currently. Starsky was a smart man. Why couldn’t he see it? Boseman was the victim; the S&P team players were the bad guys. Catch the latter to bring justice to the former. Boseman didn’t deserve to die over a little card game, and the bad guys shouldn’t have killed him over something as easy to come by as cash. End of discussion.

Dave Starsky
Sunday, April 2, 1979, A.D.

“It’s like The Pearl,” I say.

“What’d you say?” asks Hutch, looking up from Big Red McGee’s rapidly cooling body.

“I said, it’s like that story The Pearl. I read it in high school. Liked it so much, I bought the book. Trekked it over half of Vietnam. Read it almost every night. Got to the point it was only held together by rubber bands. The other guys in the platoon used to bust my balls over it.” I paused a moment, not here but there. Then I shook myself and was back in the moment. “You ever read it?”

“A long time ago,” says Hutch. “And, obviously, not as many times as you have. About a pearl diver whose kid dies, right?”

“I mean, that happens,” I say. “But the story is really about how greed kills everything you love. Four different guys get killed and then the main guy’s baby gets shot and dies. You kinda get the impression none of the people in the story were all that bad until they were tempted by a pearl of great value.”

“That’s what you think happened here, Starsk? All these guys were tempted by Washington’s big jackpot?”

“Yeah,” I say, warming to my topic. “Our S&P team of Big Red and Dolphin had already split with the dough, but Boseman couldn’t let it be. He headed out after ’em and got taken down. The coroner said it didn’t even look like a murder, on account of the angle of the bullet. More like an ‘accidental discharge,’ she said. That’s one man down.”

“Okay, I’m following you.” Hutch puts his hands on his hips.

Damn, I hate when he does that. It’s like he knows all eight fingers are pointing to his cock, reminding me I used to have access to it, but I don’t get to have it no more. It’s hard, pardon the pun, but I pull my eyes up to meet Hutch’s cool blue ones.

“Then,” I continue, “Red and Dolphin have a falling out, and suddenly Red’s swimming solo. That’s two. I know we’re gonna have to wait for the coroner’s report to get the timelines, but my best guess is that the pepper half of the S&P team took one in the gut while arguing about how to split the cash with Dolphin.”

“A rational theory,” Hutch allows, watching me watch him, which I don’t mind.

“Now we have Big Red, too fucked up to travel, but unwilling to call an ambulance to save his stupid life because he’d have to give up the cash. That’s three.”

“Looks like your analogy is short two deaths, Starsk, unless you know something I don’t?”

“Well, you’ll notice we haven’t found the cash,” I point out. “Maybe Red hid it before he died. Maybe not. Maybe somebody took it. Do you need three guesses for who I’m putting my money on as the thief?”

Hutch shakes his head. In one of those strange moments of sympatico, I know he’s saying Huggy’s name to himself.

“If Huggy took the money, I can guarantee he lost a part of himself when he picked up that sack,” I say. “He’s a good man who made a bad decision, motivated by. . . . What? Greed? Again, maybe. Maybe not. We both know that J.T. Washington thinks Huggy owes him something.”

“Maybe Huggy does, Starsk,” Hutch says softly. “Think about your conversation with the newsboy. Old before his time, already planning his life of crime. If Washington saved Huggy from the streets, he did a good thing. Think of all the times Huggy’s saved our bacon. If not for J.T., Huggy wouldn’t have been there for us. Hades, he’d probably be pushing up daisies in Potter’s Field. But I’ll go along with you. Let’s say Huggy took the cash, but in so doing a piece of his soul died. Where’s the fifth death?”

“Our trust in Huggy. How could we ever completely trust him again after this?”

“Don’t know that I ever completely trusted anybody but me and thee,” Hutch answers after a long moment, making me want my Hutch so bad my eyes go blurry. “But, yeah. I’ll be thinking twice before I share anything with Huggy, probably for a good long time.”

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
A Few Hours Later

Hutch pulled up outside Starsky’s place, put the LTD in park. “Home again, home again,” he said, stretching his arms over the steering wheel and giving his knuckles a good crack while he was at it.

“Come upstairs,” said Starsky.

“I’m bushed,” Hutch said, really meaning it for a change. How many times had he put this man off with that line? Starsky didn’t know about his little research project, but Hutch was acutely aware that the clock was ticking down. He felt good about the progress he was making on the CIA’s World Factbook, but he still had a way to go. Probably the most valuable information he’d found in the volume was a listing of each country’s resources, and a general idea of where they were located. Back home, in the Province of California, he was certain there were gold and silver veins that hadn’t been tapped. That information alone would thrill Dr. Cohen and his Science Directorate.

More worrisome was his total lack of progress finding Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator. He kept widening the scope of his search, but he hadn’t caught even a whiff of the man. It was like he’d vanished into thin air. But Starsky didn’t know about Hutch’s research or his private investigation into the whereabouts of Mariscalus, either. All Starsky knew was that his “partner” was dodging him, and he didn’t know the why of it.

“Ah, c’mon, Hutch,” Starsky wheedled. “We never hang out anymore.”

“Really—”

“I’m not taking no for an answer,” Starsky said. “Not this time. We gotta talk. And we gotta do it now.”

“What’s this about?” Hutch thought. “Sounds serious. I’d better go along.”

“Okay, partner,” he said. “Whatever you want.”

He shut off the car, rolled up the window – a threat of rain was predicted – and climbed the stairs after Starsky. The man’s fine ass was at eye level for much of the trudge, and he couldn’t help but imagine reaching out and stroking that plush bottom. Starsky held the door for him, and he crossed the threshold.

As usual, Starsky’s space was pristine: A place for everything, a thing for every place. Hutch had once imagined teasing his Starsky that someday he’d make someone a fine wife, but he’d had enough sense not to say it. They’d had very few fights, but when they did, they were bitter. And one of the quickest ways to get on his Starsky’s bad side was to impugn his manhood. Unlike Hutch’s apartment, which was strewn with notebooks, maps, dirty laundry, and pizza boxes (he’d given up on canned soup, as he had no desire to tempt the Fates with botulism again), Starsky’s, by contrast, was a showcase of order and responsibility.

“Anybody ever tell you you’ll make somebody a fine wife someday?” Hutch plopped on the couch.

“Mess makes my brain hurt,” Starsky shrugged, seemingly not the least bit offended as he headed for the kitchen.

He was impressed how secure Starsky was in his manhood.

“So,” Starsky called out, probably getting a couple of beers, “do you want to tell me what went down with Nicky at the airport?”

“I’m going to murder Nick Starsky,” Hutch thought, his hands knotting into fists at his sides. But he took a calming breath and tried to appear the picture of innocence. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I got this letter, you see,” Starsky said. “From Nicky. And, at first, I was kinda satisfied.”

Hutch was trying to relax his hands when Starsky returned to the living room with a bottle of Coke for Hutch and an Orange Nehi for himself. “But then I tried calling Ma to see if Nicky had gone by her place,” Starsky said. “It may take him a few days, but he eventually pops in to see her after he’s been out of town. Usually. But Ma hasn’t seen Nicky since the day before he left for Bay City, which I think is strange . . . until she tells me about this letter she got from him.”

“Alma got a letter from Nick?” Hutch asked, going for cool but starting to feel warm. Uncomfortably warm.

“Yeah,” said Starsky. “She read part of it to me. She was crying, Hutch.”

“Damn!” Hutch thought. He didn’t intend to make Alma cry.

“But it wasn’t sad crying,” Starsky added. “More like relieved crying. Said she’d begun to give up hoping for Nicky to get right. Which made me go read my letter again – and this time I paid attention to the seal on the postage stamp. What do you think it said, Hutch?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me, so why ask me to guess?”

“Superior, Wisconsin. I got out my atlas to look it up. Do you know what’s just four short miles away from there?”

“Again, why ask?”

“Duluth, Minnesota.”

“Imagine, that,” Hutch said, mock incredulously. “I’m from Duluth!”

“Yeah, I know,” said Starsky. He sighed. “I’m guessing you gave Nicky the shovel talk?”

“It was either that or let Tony Marcano’s goons literally give him the shovel talk,” Hutch said, trying not to sound too defensive.

“Yeah,” said Starsky. “I’d thought of that. I made some phone calls to some guys I know in the old neighborhood. Got the word out that Marcano needed to call me. When he finally dropped a dime, I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he’d better take an active interest in Nicky’s health and welfare, ’cause if anything happened to him, I was gonna come gunning for him, badge or no badge be damned.”

“Huh,” Hutch thought. “Should’ve guessed Starsky would foresee Nick’s troubles and do something about them.” “Guess we should have talked sooner, huh?”

“Maybe. Nah,” Starsky said, contradicting himself immediately. “I think your solution’s better. This way, Nicky has a clean break – no more wiseguys.”

“No more wiseguys,” Hutch agreed.

“So, you wanna order Chinese?”

“I really am tired —” Hutch started, but was cut off.

“Then take a nap. When you wake up, we’ll eat.”

Suddenly, a nap sounded good. Hutch figured it wouldn’t kill him to take the night off. Yeah. A short nap, followed by some steamed dumplings and a bowl of Moo Goo Gai Pan. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll just crash here on the couch.”

“Nah,” Starsky objected. “Take the bed. I got things to do out here and I don’t want to keep you up.”

Hutch hesitated a moment. He had a lot of memories of being in his Starsky’s bed. Would it be weird to be in this Starsky’s bed? He would soon find out. “Okay,” said Hutch, doing his best to sound casual. “Wake me in an hour, then we’ll order dinner?”

“In an hour,” Starsky agreed.

Dave Starsky
An Hour Later

I’m sitting in the chair on the other side of my bedroom. I haven’t been here long. Just a couple of minutes. The hour Hutch asked for is up, but I hate to wake him when he seems so peaceful. He looks younger when he’s asleep, even with that mustache that makes him look like some ol’ gunslinger from an RKO western. But I know I don’t have to shake him awake; he’s always had good situational awareness. He’ll feel my presence any second now and wake up on his own.

It starts with a ferocious yawn, then a fierce stretch – the kind where you hear pops and cracks, even across the room. He’s been sleeping on his side, facing the door, his magnum on the nightstand in ready reach, but now he opens his eyes, spies me, and rolls onto his back with a heavy sigh.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you,” he mutters, “that it’s creepy to watch people while they sleep?”

“Not if you love them . . . and they love you back,” I answer.

Hutch is silent a long time, as if he’s wrestling with something. I just sit quietly, waiting for that big brain to work out whatever’s bothering him. “Starsk,” he says at last. “You have to know that I love you, too, right?”

I like the direction this is going. “Yeah, I know. What we’re doing is figuring out what we’re gonna do about it.”

“Look,” he says. “I won’t lie – I want you, Starsk. But there are . . . things . . . you don’t know about me.”

“We been through this already,” I remind him. “I know who you know, what you know, and how you know it. After all these years, there’s no surprises. It’s all right there, on the box. I know what I’m getting. And it’s what I want. Now. Forever.”

“You didn’t always feel that way,” Hutch says, sitting up against the headboard. He takes a moment to plump the pillows, protecting his back, then he’s facing me. “That’s why I eighty-sixed us.”

“I get that,” I say. “I’ve had a lot of time to think, what with you not being around so much anymore. It . . . it’s left a hole in my life that I can’t fill by myself.”

I watch as Hutch shuts his eyes, a pained look painting his features. He opens them a moment later.

“What about the very real danger we’ll be in, not just from mugs on the street, but from bigoted cops? Ray Andrews, the racist kid whose ears you slapped back, probably feels the same way about gays as he does about blacks.”

“That bad shooting got him kicked off the force,” I say.

“Don’t play stupid with me, Starsk,” Hutch says, getting prickly. “Was that my point?”

“No,” I answer. “Your point is that there’s no shortage of bigots and homophobes on and off the force. Are you saying you can’t hack dealing with assholes like Andrews?”

“I can handle it,” Hutch says sternly. “Can you?”

“I figure we’d have to change up some things.”

“Like what?”

“Dobey’s not getting any younger,” I say. “And who knows who’ll replace him? Probably not somebody willing to let us run with our style of investigation, which ain’t ever been conventional.”

“I can see that.” Hutch’s voice is moody. “What are you suggesting?”

“I don’t get the feeling you’ve been too happy with police work for a while,” I say. “That, maybe, you’ve been sticking around for me, ’cause you’re worried if someone else is my partner, they’ll screw it up.”

“This last year has been . . . rough,” Hutch admits. “I reckoned it was some kind of detective seven-year-itch thing. Something you work through and come out the other end wiser and ready to rock and roll again.”

“But what if it isn’t?” I ask. “What if you’re just done, Hutch? I know you. You’ll move on. But I don’t mind if you move on as long as there’s still us. You can be a chef or a lawyer or a therapist or a hairdresser or a dog walker for all I care. I just don’t want to lose you.”

I watch as Hutch’s brows draw together, his “I think” wrink simply cavernous. “Let’s suppose I do become a dog walker. What are you going to do?”

“Work on getting a transfer to the Academy,” I say.

“What would you do there?” he asks, like I’m a moron who doesn’t know enough about anything to teach.

“Tactical skills. Officer safety and survival. Firearms. Defensive driving,” I answer easily, having given this a lot of thought. “We’re both highly decorated, Hutch. I don’t think I’m being conceited when I say that the Academy would probably snap me up because so many fifty-something guys apply to escape desk duty. I’m still young enough and fit enough to give these twenty-year-olds a run for their money.”

“And when they find out you’re gay? What then?”

“What’s gay, Hutch? Don’t try to label what we got. I don’t. I like women and I like you. If anything, that makes me b-bi-sexual.” I stumble over the unfamiliar word. “But I don’t like that name, either. I’m just me and you’re just you. And that’s that.”

“Somehow, I think the nuance would be lost on your superiors,” Hutch says, his voice suddenly sour.

“And Dobey says the department is under pressure to hire ‘gay’ cops. If people wanna call me gay because I sleep with you, ain’t nothing I can do to stop ’em. But as long as I’ve got my record, if someone tries to fire me for being gay, I’ll have my union rep and a lawyer on ’em faster than Jesse Owens. I even know a certain city councilman who’d probably be on my side. Remember Peter Whitelaw, John Blaine’s former lover?”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Without you around,” I say, “I’ve had nothing to do but think. So, what’s it gonna be, Hutch? Are you gonna get on the horse with me?”

“I-I want to—” Hutch says.

“—Then it’s decided!”

“I want to,” Hutch repeats, this time more doggedly. “But those things you don’t know about me? Well, they’re going to take a little time to . . . fix.”

“Hey,” I say, suddenly concerned. “If you’ve got something jamming you up, all you have to do is ask. There’s nothing we can’t beat, together.”

“It’s something you can’t help me with,” he says.

“Why not? What’s so bad that you can’t share it with me?”

“Starsk, if I told you, you’d never believe me. . . .”

“Try me,” I say.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
A Moment Later

“Try me,” Starsky said.

“So,” Hutch thought. “I guessed right.” That bit about “eighty-sixing” the relationship was a gamble, as he’d only been able to piece together from tiny clues what had happened to the other Starsky and Hutch’s relationship. But that seemed the most likely scenario to him, seeing as everything Starsky’d said and done since Hutch had arrived there. Now it looked like Starsky was ready to pick up where they’d left off.

For a moment, Hutch was tempted. Tempted to talk about the Earth he came from. Cohen’s experiment. The other Starsky – his real partner. Tempted to tell this Starsky that his Hutch was trapped on the other world for at least another month, maybe three months, maybe forever. Who knew? All Hutch knew was that if he couldn’t go home, he wanted this version of his partner. But if he told Starsky about all the madness associated with this bizarre exchange, and he didn’t believe Hutch, it would forever tarnish their relationship.

“Hades,” Hutch thought. “For that matter, if I tell him and he does believe me, it’ll also forever tarnish our relationship.” Starsky was loyal to a fault. If Hutch found himself stuck on Earth II, they might get together, but he would always know he was Starsky’s second choice. And Starsky would always know he was Hutch’s second choice.

Not only that . . . Hutch was well aware that if he spoke of his other life, Starsky wouldn’t rest until he had the complete story. But would Starsky want to be with someone with so much blood on his hands? Iron Mike’s fate at Hutch’s hands alone would be a deal breaker. Stay or go, Hutch couldn’t see how he could make this work.

And what about the other Hutch? What if Cohen and his team of mad scientists did manage to make the swap work, but Hutch had done something that would deep-six any chance the other Hutch had to be with his Starsky? “And how is this my life? My problem?” Hutch thought.

Abruptly, Starsky disturbed his musings.

“Look,” he said, his face a strange mixture of sad and grim. His funeral face. “I thought it was me that screwed things up, Hutch. But I can see now that it really does take two to tango. You don’t want to tell me what’s going on – okay. I don’t like it, but I don’t have to like it. But it took a lot for me to totally rewire my head and every expectation I ever had for myself and my life to ask you to be with me. Forever. I thought that was what you wanted, too.”

“It is what I want,” Hutch insisted. “It’s just that . . . now, right now . . . isn’t the right time. Can you give me some time to sort some stuff out?”

“How much time?” Starsky asked. “I’ve been trying everything I know to get us back together for the past eight months. I’ve done everything but handcuff you to the bed and have my way with you.”

“I’m not sure how much time it’s going to take,” Hutch said.

“Well, I’m not sure how long I can wait.” Starsky’s voice was too even, which was a sure tell, Hutch knew, that Starsky was hurting. “You talking six months? Six years? Sixteen years? How long? I’m thirty-five, pal. It may not have lasted, but at least you’ve been married. I’m finally ready to lay down roots. Build a life. I want it to be with you. But if that can’t happen, I need to know so I can fish or cut bait.”

“I don’t know, Starsk. I wish I could give you a definitive answer, but I can’t. Can you try to wait just a little bit longer? I’ll know soon – one way or another – how my . . . problem . . . pans out.”

“I don’t know,” Starsky echoed. “I’m asking you to do the equivalent of get married to me and you can’t tell me what’s got you in so much trouble that you can’t even commit to a date to tell me yes or no?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said, defeat clearly articulated. “I guess that about sums it up.”

“It’s not enough,” Starsky said quietly. Sadly. “I-I can’t promise anything, since I can’t get the same from you.”

There was a long pause. Hutch wanted to say something that would make this right, but he knew he didn’t have anything. Instead, he got up from the bed, straightened his clothes, and walked past Starsky. For a moment, he laid his palm on his partner’s shoulder, trying to convey by touch alone how much he wanted him, willing him to be patient, to give the people on his Earth a chance to fix things so they could both be with the people they wanted – needed – to be with. But that was an awful lot to expect from one short caress.

Hutch picked up his service revolver, left the bedroom, gathered up his jacket from the living room, and let himself out the front door. “It’s just for another month, maybe three, max,” he thought. “Nothing that can’t be fixed by a little more time.” But he was an expert interrogator. He knew when people were bullshitting him. Even when the bullshitter was himself.

Dave Starsky
A Few Moments Later

I hear the front door close. Suddenly, I’m not hungry for Chinese or anything else to eat. That’s not true; if Hutch turned around and came back in here, I’d eat him up like ice cream on a blazing hot summer day. But it don’t look like that’s in the cards, and I better start sucking it up and moving on with my life.

The rest of my life. What does that even look like without Hutch in it every hour of every day?

I sit for a long time, not thinking, just feeling, while the bedroom gets darker as the sun goes down. After a while, I turn on the bedside lamp. I can see, but I can’t see my next steps. What does my future look like?

Might as well start dating again, I think at last. Yeah. I guess that’s what normal people do. There’s that policewoman in Vice who’s let me know she’s up for some good times. What’s her name? Kira. Yeah, I’ll give her a call and see if we can’t get together next weekend.

I’m not happy. Might not be happy for a long time. But I figure it’s best to get back on the horse as quickly as possible. Not mope around the place like some lovelorn teenager with a crush on his partner that obviously isn’t returned. At least not now, when it matters. I’m not waiting for some mythic open-ended day that could be ten years from now or when we retire for Hutch to be ready for us to get together.

It’s killing me. But I’ve got to move on.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Saturday, May 5, 1979, A.D.

Hutch was in his car, heading across town, to a little cottage just at the city line. That work voice in his head – the one that was the master interrogator – was running him ragged. He kept cheating little glances up into the rearview mirror, almost as if he expected to see a specter version of himself sitting in the back seat. Grilling him. Asking him, again and again, “Why are you doing this?”

“I’ll tell you why,” he said to the mental ghost.

Hutch had seen the way Starsky looked at that woman. In a classic case of transference, Starsky, he believed, had packed up all his feelings for both Hutches and given them directly to Kira What’s-her-name. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Hutch knew Starsky was ready for a relationship, but did it have to be with her?

And she was so laissez-faire about it, flirting with him when Starsky wasn’t around. Probably flirting with other men, too. He’d bet money that she imagined it was her superpower – the ability to attract men so easily. No argument, she was a beautiful woman on the outside, but on the inside? In his opinion, she gave off an almost mannish vibe. It wasn’t that she had lesbian tendencies. Far from it. It was more like fucking was a sport to her, and she was in it to rack up points. That attitude was more of a man’s domain than a woman’s, though it could and did exist.

Hutch couldn’t say for certain – not until he’d spent more time with her – but he thought she could be a borderline narcissist, toying with him and Starsky for pure amusement. As for poor, naive Starsky, he’d fallen deeply down the Stephen Stills hole: “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with.”

Starsky was definitely in over his head. He’d even talked about marrying her, for crying out loud! Meanwhile, Kira had been putting out the signals that she’d be happy to go for a joy ride with Hutch, and she didn’t mean going on a road trip with him.

To make matters worse, Starsky had just spent his lunch break at a jewelry store. Even if Kira was “the one,” it was far too soon for him to be handing out expensive trinkets.

“Gods!” Hutch shouted, banging his fist against the dusty dashboard. “What if he bought her a ring?”

It was a bad scene either way. If Starsky were to propose to her and she shot him down, which was the most likely scenario, he’d be crushed, especially so close on the heels of Hutch “rejecting” the idea they get back together permanently. But if Kira accepted a ring and a promise from Starsky, who was basically an old-fashioned guy, he’d be stuck – at best – with a very modern woman who didn’t strike Hutch as the type to stay home and watch TV while eating pizza from Domino’s.

The way Hutch saw it, he had three responsibilities while living in this strange world. The first was to find and kill Mariscalus. So far, he was zero and one. The second was to complete his research, which was coming along swimmingly; he had only fifty more pages of the World Factbook to go, then he’d be home free. That put him up to one and one. The last item on his list was something he’d put there himself. Just like he’d expect that other Hutch to take care of Earth II Starsky, he needed to take care of this world’s Starsky, and that included not letting him do anything stupid, like wreck his relationship with his Hutch just when things were getting down to the short strokes.

“I know what I have to do,” he told himself. “I don’t like it, but I’m going to do it anyway.”

Hutch pulled into the empty spot in front of Kira’s place and put his car in park. He was going to see if a little “afternoon delight” with another man would put Starsky off Kira’s scent.

He hated that he was deliberately hurting Starsky. But if ever there was a case of having to be cruel to be kind, this was undeniably it.

Dave Starsky
Monday, May 7, 1979, A.D.

I’m a little early, but that’s the way I want it. Down the concrete steps into The Pits, then belly up to the bar. I ask Huggy for a beer and a piña colada for a beautiful blonde. Or should that be blond? I reckon I know the answer to that question.

It isn’t long before Hutch joins me at the bar, though I give him a wide berth. He orders a beer and a piña colada, too.

You know, after me and him got into a fistfight at Kira’s place, over him screwing who I thought was my girl, it was like a bubble popped in my head. I mean, I could still see Kira for what she was – beautiful, witty, funny, and very sympathetic to the male of the species – but I could also see that what she had to give wasn’t reserved just for me. C’mon, think about it. Me and Kira had made love only a few hours before, and I’d come over with an infinity pendant necklace that I thought would look great on her and symbolize where I was trying to take this relationship, only to find Hutch’s car out front. I was so mad, I was practically seeing red. I double parked, not giving a damn that my Torino was blocking the street, just needing to get inside fast to see what was going on behind my back.

Kira opened the door, asking what I was doing there, like I couldn’t come over without calling first? And who did I find coming out of her bedroom half naked? Yes. My partner. The one and only Hutch. It’s obvious what they’d been doing, and Kira wasn’t acting nearly as guilty about it as Hutch was. But it was Hutch I took my temper out on. Then things got messy and she threw us both out, which, in hindsight, I don’t blame her for doing. I wouldn’t want two hot-to-trot knuckleheads banging up my apartment, either.

Then the three of us had to go back to The Golden Lady Ballroom because we were still working our undercover assignment to catch a strangler. I was antsy, uncomfortable in my skin. Being near Hutch was excruciating. Being near Kira was worse. But all of that angst and bullshit vanished when Joey Webster pulled out a grenade. I instantly saw that it was an old-school MK2, the classic pineapple design used in every major military conflict from 1917 to the ’60s. Joey must have bought it on the munitions black market. It’s a lot easier to “lose” outdated equipment and resell it to civilian collectors and veteran nutjobs like Joey than state-of-the-art gear. I know from firsthand experience what an MK2 can do. Even if I were to tackle Joey and place myself on top of the grenade, all that would do is turn every bone in my body into a thousand fragments of death-dealing shrapnel, more than adequate to kill Hutch and everybody else in a thirty-foot radius ten times over.

Suddenly, all I could think about was what if me and Hutch died before we had a chance to make up? Instinctively, I turned to him, hoping to catch his eye. He was already looking at me. I couldn’t see his eyes for those damned sunglasses, but his face wasn’t painted with fear or despair or anger. I saw something else. Determination. It was like I could read his mind: Hutch is gonna knock that grenade out of Joey’s hand. My job is to catch it, throw it out the window, and hope some homeless guy isn’t asleep in the alley and becomes collateral damage. It’s a chance I’m willing to take if it saves Hutch’s life.

Since I’m still here, it’s obvious our unspoken plan worked.

Anyway, after the grenade detonated outside The Golden Lady, it was then I saw how futile any decent relationship with Kira would be. Without so much as a glance at me or Hutch, she went over to Joey and comforted him, squarely in the center of a wrecked room and a wrecked life, the front and center of attention. I knew I didn’t need that kind of energy in my life. I do know that when I looked up, Hutch’s eyes were locked with mine. And in that moment, my ears still ringing from the explosion, smoke tendrils roiling the ballroom, I could see Hutch was in pain. No, not injured, though I immediately rushed to his side and felt him all over, even as he did the same to me, witnesses be damned, just to make sure. I could see he was hurting. Over us. Over me.

“Damn, I’m an idiot,” I remember thinking at the time. All I wanted to do was find a quiet place and hold Hutch until I was sure he was all right, that we were both all right, and this wasn’t some deathbed dream I was caught in. But the sound of sirens began to pierce my ears over the tinny ringing, and cops started to pour into the dance hall and take custody of Joey. And pretty soon a couple of ambulance guys were checking me and Hutch out, and Dobey was there, telling us, “Good job, but did you have to blow up Madame Bouvet’s place to catch the killer?” and the whole machinery of policework took over, and it was hours and hours before Hutch and I could finally leave the scene.

Without exchanging a word, Hutch abandoned his car and got into mine, which was fine by me. I drove us to his place, the space that I think of as “ours,” since that’s where we first got together. I parked around the corner ‘cause there wasn’t nothing open in front of Venice Place. We leaned on each other as we staggered up the staircase, not caring that it wasn’t really wide enough for the both of us, just needing the contact. I was on the outside, so when we got to his apartment I reached up and snagged the key off the lintel but handed it to Hutch to open the door. Then we were inside and I was pushing Hutch’s peacoat and Greek fisherman’s hat off and tossing those stupid Lennon sunglasses away. Then I shrugged off my suede jacket and held onto Hutch for dear life and he did the same. We didn’t say anything, just stayed in a crushing embrace so tight I could barely breathe, but I didn’t care.

We were alive. And that meant we had another chance to figure out this thing between us.

At last, whatever speck of adrenaline was keeping me upright wore off. I was suddenly so tired I almost couldn’t stand. I patted Hutch’s back – the universal guy code for “I’m gonna let up now” – and took a step back. I tilted my chin towards his bedroom, silently asking if that’s what he wanted. His nod was small but immediate. We fell into bed, not caring that we were on top of the covers. The only thing we did was kick off our shoes and allow them to drop off the end of the mattress. Then we were back in a clench.

I don’t know how long we lay there like that. Holding on, not saying anything. I just know it was Hutch who dropped off to sleep first. I didn’t mind. Had a lot of thinking to do, and I couldn’t think of a better place to do it than in Hutch’s arms.

The next morning, I woke up stiff and alone. The ringing in my head had stopped but I could hear a little squeeeee noise that sorta sounded like the TV when it signs off for the night. Lucky I don’t have a concussion, I remember thinking. But I knew that as soon as that little squeeeeee sound went away, I’d never hear anything on that exact frequency ever again. Such is life. I’ll sacrifice a little hearing and stay otherwise alive any day of the week.

It took a moment but I heard the shower running. Part of me wanted to go join Hutch, but I knew that – last night notwithstanding – we still had a lotta things to figure out. Together. So, I rummaged through his clothes, found one of my old flannel shirts, grabbed a pair of his boxers and sweats, and waited my turn for the shower. I smelled like sulfur, burnt almonds, and the cheap perfume of the dance girls for hire.

I couldn’t wait to get clean.

Couldn’t wait to come clean.

And it was while I was waiting for my shot at the bathroom that I figured out the perfect plan to deal with Kira.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Monday, May 7, 1979, A.D.

Hutch was right on time but saw that Starsky had arrived early at their rendezvous. He expected Kira to arrive any minute.

Huggy sauntered over and took his order of a beer and a piña colada.

“Are you the beautiful blond?” Huggy asked.

Hutch answered with the “we’ll see” eyebrows.

Then Kira arrived, and Huggy warned her, “Be careful, honey. They’re a little insane today.”

But Hutch had never felt saner in his entire life.

The little farce that he and Starsky had cooked up played out perfectly. Kira showed her true colors, unwilling to “pick” either man, which suited Hutch – and Starsky – just fine. They left The Pits, arm-in-arm, and could barely restrain their glee until they got to the alley where they’d parked their cars.

“Oh, man,” Starsky laughed, nearly bent double. “Did you see her face?”

Hutch was laughing so hard he was choking. “D-did – d-did – d-did you see Huggy’s face? I think he thinks . . . we’re gonna drive . . . to Vegas . . . and get married . . . in one of those . . . drive-thru wedding chapels.”

It took a moment for Hutch to get his coughing under control, but when he did, Starsky was staring at him with unmistakable longing.

“You know,” said Starsky, “I kinda wish we could.”

That sobered Hutch up. What can you say to something like that? Only the truth will do.

“I kind of wish we could, too, Starsk.”

“So,” Starsky said, running his fingers though his curls, then adjusting the collar of his leather jacket so that it lay flat. “I’m guessing you don’t wanna come over to my place, huh?”

Hutch felt lower than pond scum, but this was a night for truth. “You remember those ‘things’ I have to do?”

“Yeah,” Starsky replied, the light leaking from his eyes. “You still need a little time?”

“Just a little, Starsk,” Hutch answered softly, earnestly. “Just a little more time and you’ll get everything you deserve.”

“Okay, Hutch,” Starsky said just as softly. “I’ll wait.”

With that, Starsky turned, walked a little further down the alley, unlocked his car, got in, and drove off.

Hutch stood watching until the Torino’s taillights were lost in the distance.

“By all Gods living, dead, and yet to be born,” Hutch thought, “please let Cohen and his crew of mad scientists make the exchange soon. Not for my sake, but for Starsky’s.”

 

Chapter XIV:
Quid Agitur – Responsum Inveniam

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Tuesday, 15 May 1979, J.C.

It feels so surreal to be standing in the Palazzo Urbis Praetorium, what we would call City Hall back, well, back where I come from. This is where the Mayor, I mean the Magnus, has his office. Starsky and I are being honored here today by Tomas Bradelus, Magnus of Bay City, for our part in taking down the drug-dealing, money-laundering, crooked Consul Raymond McClellen. For the first time, I’m wearing what passes as the dress uniform of this other Earth: a blue silk tunic with epaulets and braided wrist cuffs, all of it trimmed in silver, over black trousers and black knee-high leather boots, which, I’ll tell you for nothing, were a bitch to get on.

“Point your toe,” Starsky kept repeating as he’d sat beside me on my couch, pulling with all his might on the outer left side of the boot while I pulled with all my might on the inner right side.

“I am pointing my toe,” I maintained.

“Point it pointier,” Starsky ordered, “or we’re gonna be late. And I think that if you’re late to see the Magnus, they hang you.”

“Please tell me you’re shitting me,” I said.

“I don’t know if the Magnus himself hangs you, but Dobey said he would string us up if we weren’t on time, and I’ve never known him to lie about something like that.”

“Stuff it.” I shrugged. “I’ll just wear black socks over my trousers and hope nobody notices.”

“You don’t own black socks, Mister White-on-White,” Starsky said drolly. He was right. I don’t own black socks. Even when I go to a funeral, I wear white socks. They just feel better.

“You gotta go up a size,” Starsky grunted, pulling so hard I was afraid he was going to give himself a hernia.

“I priced a new pair of boots yesterday and decided I could make do with the old ones,” I told him. “Do you know how much these cost?”

“I’m wearing a pair, aren’t I?”

“Then you know!”

“I know we’re gonna be late if we don’t get these on you!”

“I’m trying, Starsk!”

“Okay!” Starsky let go of the leather and stood up. “Time to try a new strategy. We’re gonna do the stand-up-and-stomp method.”

“Jeez, Starsk,” I moaned, starting to get anxious for real. If I’ve learned anything while here, it’s that you don’t screw with Dobey.

“Stand up, Hutchinson!” Starsky commanded. “We don’t have all day!”

I stood up with the half-on, half-off left boot folded under my foot. Starsky positioned himself facing me and bent over, grasping the top of the boot on both sides. His blue tunic rode up just enough for me to see his perfect ass encased in his tight trousers.

“Okay. Put your hands on my shoulders to steady yourself,” he ordered, clearly in his element. “I don’t want you losing your balance, big guy.”

“I’m not going to lose my balance.”

“‘I’m not going to lose my balance, weh, weh, weh,’” Starsky mocked. “Hutch, I’ve seen you lose your balance climbing up to the witness stand, and this is a lot trickier, so – please – don’t make me beg. Just hold onto my Gods-be-damned shoulders and, when I give the signal, point your toe and stomp your foot at the same time. Think you can handle that, klutz?”

I didn’t dignify his remark with an answer, just waited for his go sign.

“One, two, three, STOMP!”

I stomped my foot, grateful to be holding onto Starsky’s shoulders, enjoying the bunch and flow of the silk-covered muscles beneath my fingers.

“STOMP!”

I felt the boot move halfway up my calf.

“STOMP!”

My foot slid the last little bit into place, leaving me huffing and puffing. We were both sweating like pigs by the time we got the second boot on.

“I’m driving,” Starsky announced as we raced down my stairs to the street. “If we go lights and sirens the whole way, we should make it in time. . . .”

Thankfully, we arrived with five minutes to spare. We parked illegally, willing to pay for a ticket rather than pay with our bodies for being late. An aide met us at the door and escorted us directly to the Magnus’ office, which was filled with reporters, minor city dignitaries, the Chief and the Deputy Chief of Police, the Assistant DA, and our boss.

Now we’re standing at attention on either side of the Magnus, settling in for his speech.

“Good morning, everyone,” says Magnus Bradelus cheerily. “Chief Ryan, Deputy Chief Reasonor, distinguished guests, officers of the United Provinces Police Force, members of the press, and fellow citizens. We are gathered here today to celebrate the truest meaning of public service and heroism.”

I wonder if Lionel Rigger is looking down on this day with any sense of satisfaction. It depresses me that we lost a witness on our watch, especially one who was such a good friend to Huggy, but I hope that Rigger’s spirit, if it’s floating around, finds some comfort in the fact that we not only took down the actual trigger man – a creep who went by the moniker “Soldier,” who we still haven’t been able to identify fully – but also Consul McClellen, the criminal mastermind behind the whole complicated case. I doubt that Mardeen Rigger will forgive us anytime soon but just hope that she knows her man died for something bigger than all of us. Thoughts of Soldier set my mind down a path that still pisses me off because the bastard also blew up my car! He deserved to die for that alone.

“Every day,” Magnus Bardelus continues, “the brave men and women of our police force put on their uniforms, knowing the risks that come with the job. They are the guardians who stand between order and chaos, and we are all safer for their unwavering dedication.”

I also wonder if Frank Anderson were still alive, would he be grateful that we’ve reestablished his daughter Laura in the witness protection program? She’s got a new name and a new life, far away from Bay City. When we die, if we just go to sleep forever, I guess Starsky’s “Uncle Frank” will never know that we took out his murderer and saved his daughter, too. But it’s a nice fantasy, imagining the dead being able to look in on the living and finding fulfilment in justice being served.

“Today,” Bradelus drones on, hitting his speech-making stride and looking set to keep it up for a while, “we have the distinct honor of recognizing two such officers, Detective David Starsky and Detective Kenneth Hutchinson, for acts of exceptional bravery.”

Or, I think, you could call them acts of exceptional survival.

“On Wednesday, May 5^th, Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson faced a murder-for-hire ring. Confronted with odds of five against two, the situation was complicated by the presence of an innocent civilian held hostage – a civilian the gang intended to murder, along with our officers. With incredible composure and focus, the officers assessed the situation and took decisive action. Forced to disarm or face the immediate execution of the hostage, the officers selflessly tossed away their weapons. Then, Detective Starsky calmly approached the gang. At the appropriate moment, he took hold of the hostage and pushed both himself and the young woman to safety by jumping through a plateglass window.”

I still can’t believe they weren’t cut to ribbons. I’m so grateful that Starsky and the girl came through unscathed.

“Meanwhile,” Bradelus continues, “Detective Hutchinson regained his and his partner’s weapons and proceeded to attack the would-be murderers, terminating two immediately.”

In a flashbulb memory, I can see myself breaking right, seizing our service pistols and firing twice with both, like an old-time Wild West movie character, before taking cover behind a barrel and tossing Starsky’s gun across the boardwalk, watching it shatter an unbroken pane of glass. I knew Starsky would retrieve the weapon and cover my position. I just needed to stay alive the five more seconds that would take to happen. In the meantime, I took out a third shooter, leaving only one thug and the ringleader himself, the self-titled Soldier.

“Rearmed by his partner, Detective Starsky, in a dazzling display of marksmanship, nullified the final two shooters and, thereby, secured the scene.”

Why does Starsky get to be “dazzling”? Why aren’t we both dazzling? I had a sixty percent kill rate to his forty percent. I never get a break. Luck, thy name is Starsky.

“Thanks to their courage, quick thinking, and selflessness,” Bradelus says, “the murder of an innocent civilian was averted and a cabal of professional killers was taken forever out of circulation.”

It’s not like we had a choice. It was either fight or die.

“Their bravery is not the absence of fear but the mastery of it in the face of danger,” Bradelus persists.

Despite all the accolades, I wish the Magnus would hurry up and finish his endless speech. My feet are killing me. I’ve got to get out of these boots sooner rather than later.

“Gentlemen, on behalf of a grateful community, we say thank you. You have reminded us all what it means to serve with honor, and your actions will be a testament to your character for years to come.” At this, Bradelus nods to his aide, who comes forward with the tray that holds two sashes with three silver stripes each. Last night, Starsky had run me through what to expect as, evidently, this is the third time “we’ve” being awarded the Argentum Stella Pro Valir: the Silver Star of Valor.

“Why do they call it a silver star if they don’t give you a silver star?” I’d asked.

“Huh,” Starsky had said. “I never thought about it before. But it’s weird, ain’t it?”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

I’m going to see this un-silver star Silver Star up close any minute now.

Dobey, as our commanding officer, comes to the front of the room and takes up position behind us. As the Magnus lifts each sash off the tray, Dobey unbuttons first my right epaulet and then Starsky’s. Looks like I’m going first. As I’d been told earlier, I bow my head so the Magnus can get the sash over it easily. Success! Then Dobey slides the sash under my epaulet and rebuttons it before smoothing the sash in the back, making sure it lies neatly, while I neaten it in the front. Also as instructed previously, I salute. And I’m done.

Now it’s Starsky’s turn, and I watch the ceremony from the corner of my eye.

Damn, he looks good in blue and silver, this man who’s been my partner for nine months now. With any luck, I’ll be leaving this crazy, mixed-up world soon and returning home to my real partner. At least, that’s what Korby assured us. But, in the meantime, I admit that I’m proud of the work we’ve performed in this exhausting two-month investigation, which has seen us almost assassinated on at least three different occasions.

The Magnus is finished placing Starsky’s sash, and he completes his fist-to-chest salute, looking insufferably pleased with himself. I shouldn’t complain because I feel the same way. I just hope I’m hiding it better.

Bradelus reaches for my hand and gives it a firm shake. “May all the Gods bless you, Detective Starsky.” I groan inwardly. They can’t get my name right in any universe, it seems.

“And may all the Gods bless you, Detective Hutchinson,” Bradelus says, pumping Starsky’s hand briskly. Then the Magnus turns to face the press corps and places one hand on each of our shoulders. His aide gives the signal that pictures may now be taken.

I swear it took twenty minutes for the flashbulb after-images to fade from my eyes.

Attendance has started to thin out when Dobey tears himself away from the small buffet at the back of the room. Still munching on a piece of cake, he gives us both a grin. I’m shocked. I’ve not seen this Dobey smile in all the time I’ve been here.

“Thrice decorated,” Dobey declares. “Three silver stars – do you two clowns know you’re the only officers in the entire province of California to have earned three silver stars?”

“No,” says Starsky. “Does it come with a pay raise?”

“By Dis Pater no,” the captain declares. “But how does three days off with pay sound?”

“I’ll take it, sir,” I say, even now being careful around Dobey.

“We both will,” Starsky butts in.

“Then get out of here, already. And Hutchinson,” Dobey adds threateningly, “the next time you’re at parade rest, you better stand stock still, no matter how much grief your boots are giving you. Hear me?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” I reply formally.

Dobey gives us a smile and a salute and doesn’t even wait for us to return it. He just heads back to the buffet before the catering slaves close it down.

As we’re leaving the building, I ask Starsky, “How did Dobey know my feet hurt?”

“He just knows shit,” says Starsky. “That’s why he’s the boss.”

We’re heading across the vast marble lobby, the hobnails in the soles of our boots making a horrible clatter, when I pose another question. “Do you think they’ve towed the Torino? I’m not up to walking very far.”

“Damn,” says Starsky, increasing his pace, “I sure hope not!”

Sure enough, the Torino is being towed away. We attempt to chase it down, each jarring step pure agony for me. We turn the corner and make it halfway down the block, hoping the traffic light will stop the tow truck and we can catch up and get the car back, but the guy blows through the yellow signal, leaving us in the dust.

This side of the Palazzo Urbis Praetorium building features a beautiful expanse of lawn, which I’ve learned from both Starsky and the papers is often used for public assemblies or family picnics or ceremonies honoring the city’s patron God, which I’d discovered along the way was Minerva, the Goddess of wisdom, commerce, warfare, and crafts. Somehow, the pain in my feet takes all the pleasure out of this massive greenspace that would usually gratify me.

“Hey, fellas,” calls a feminine voice from the corner. We both turn to see if we’re the “fellas” being hailed and, no doubt about it, we are. A slim, beautiful woman with a full head of long honey blonde hair walks towards us, and it doesn’t take long for me to recognize her as that reporter who once did a story on us – first to our detriment and then to our betterment. She struts up to our position, notebook and camera in hand.

“Chris Phelps, good to see you again,” I say, cautiously pleased to see her.

“Chris Phelippou, if you don’t mind,” she corrects pertly.

“Hutch is terribly with names, Miss Phelippou,” Starsky covers for me, as he’s done since my arrival to this bizarre world.

“Sorry I missed your big ceremony, boys,” she says. “But I was chasing down a hot lead that wouldn’t wait.”

“Oh, we understand hot leads,” I say, trying to be polite, but wanting nothing more than to get out of these tortuous boots.

“Imagine my surprise,” the reporter says, “when I drop by the Magnus’ building to see if I can catch the end of your dog and pony show, only to find my two favorite detectives running as if the Kindly Ones were on their heels. I figured you might be pursuing a hot lead of your own and thought I’d check it out.”

“I wish,” said Starsky. “My, uhm, well, uhm, we were running, uhm—”

“Starsky’s car was towed and we were trying to stop the tow truck driver and get it back,” I summarize, realizing Starsky is feeling embarrassed – no, probably feeling emasculated – by what happened to his tomato on wheels.

“Well,” says Phelippou, “I’ll make you a deal. Give me an exclusive interview and photo and I’ll give you a ride to the city impound lot and a copy of the picture for you to keep. Sound fair?”

“More than fair,” I blurt before Starsky can blow this golden opportunity with his stubborn independence. He gives me some side eye but let’s me have my way.

“So where do you want to photograph us?” he asks.

“Right here is fine,” she says, sweeping her arm at the broad grassy carpet in the background. “Everyone else will have stuffy portraits with the Magnus. I’ll have something candid and charming, just like you two.”

Starsky smiles at the compliment, but I’m a bit more reserved. This is a cutthroat world, and Chris Phelps was fierce back on mine. I can only imagine how tough she is here. Starsky and I go up the sidewalk that leads to the lawn, about six feet. “Is this good?” Starsky asks.

“Perfect.”

We stand side by side, at attention, trying to look dignified and proud at the same time.

“No, no, no,” scolds Phelippou. “I said ‘candid’ and ‘charming’ – not Academy Graduation Day. Act like you like each other, mighty members of the Theban Band.”

For a moment, I’m tempted to kiss Starsky, wanting to light a fire under Chris Phelps’ doppelganger. But that wouldn’t be honest. Starsky hasn’t laid an inappropriate finger on me since we learned about the experiment that caused me and his Hutch to change worlds. Instead of a kiss, I sling my arm over his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around my waist.

“Yes!” The click of her camera accompanies her words and Starsky and I break pose, though – if I’m being truthful – it’s with some reluctance on my part. I know he’s not my Starsky, but he’s nevertheless a Starsky, and while my mind can tell the difference, my body sure can’t.

“Wait here, boys” says Phelippou, “while I get my car. I’m driving a green Pontiacus. I’ll be back in ten.”

Once Chris Phelps – I mean Chris Phelippou – turns the corner, I flop down on the sidewalk. “That’s it,” I say. I begin the struggle to toe off my right boot, which feels like it’s been rubber cemented to the sole of my foot.

“What were you going to do,” Starsky asks, exasperated, more by the loss of his car than by me, “if we had to walk the forty city blocks to the station? Do it in your sock feet? That would’ve felt terrific by the time we’d arrived.”

“Yes,” I hiss, then breathe a sigh of success. The first boot is off, revealing my white-socked foot. I wiggle my toes in delight. “I’d have gladly walked forty blocks in my socks. Anything to get out of these foot-destroying fuckers.”

Starsky takes pity on me and says, “Hand me your leg.”

With one hard yank, he pulls the offending boot off the left foot. I sit there a moment, trying to wriggle the circulation back into my toes. Then, spying a municipal waste can, I get up, grab the black leather tools of the Inquisition, and dump them in with the rest of the garbage.

“Here comes our ride,” says Starsky, stepping up to the curb. “Don’t be surprised if your white socks make the papers.”

“Frankly, Scarlet,” I quote, handing Starsky back some of the movie trivia he’s always springing on me – not even bothering to speculate whether Gone with the Wind is a thing here. “I don’t give a damn.”

 

Chapter 15:
What’s Going On? I’m Gonna Find Out

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Tuesday, May 15, 1979, A.D.

Hutch didn’t really mind that Starsky had beaten him at ping-pong. The game didn’t exist on his world or, if it did, he hadn’t heard about it. But he’d gotten pretty good pretty fast in the time it was taking to paint the bullpen, and that was why he’d been willing to wager a three-course meal. Win or lose, it would be a chance to celebrate with this Starsky, a sort of “last hurrah” before he was returned to his home world. He could feel it in his bones, every instinct telling him that he would be recalled soon. Just this morning, he’d read an in-depth article in The Daily Chronicle about how solar winds and solar flares were decaying Skylab’s orbit so rapidly that the space station was expected to reenter the atmosphere partially burnt up, and then the remains would crash land on Earth in early- to mid-July. Dr. Cohen had said the atmospheric conditions would be ripe for his recall once there was a storm of sufficient size accompanied by solar flares.

Of course, there was the small problem of Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator, the man he’d been sent to assassinate. Try as he might, he couldn’t find hide nor hair of the man. The best solution he’d come up with was one his partner back home often advocated for: when all else failed, lie your ass off. Hutch knew every tell there was that indicated a person was lying, even the inconsistent ones: being vague or providing too much detail; looking askance; excessive blinking or too-direct eye contact combined with a lack of blinking; hesitation and the use of filler words like “um”; touching the face or covering the mouth; inconsistent body language including fidgeting and contradictory gestures, such as nodding yes when the eyes are visibly saying no. Hutch had been practicing his “I shot Gunther leaving his home” speech for weeks, when it became clear he wasn’t going to find the man. There was only one problem: Hutch had a tell that he had absolutely no control over. And that was excessive sweating.

“Don’t borrow trouble,” he thought. “You’ve prepared as carefully as you can. Let the dice fall where they may. With any luck, Starsky will be there when you deliver your message to Cohen, and together we can get out of this pinch with the good doctor and his operatives if he doesn’t believe me.”

Plan in place, he followed Starsky out of the station and into the precinct parking lot.

“You owe me a dinner, buddy boy,” Starsky enthused.

“As long as I’m buying, you mind if I pick the date?” Hutch asked.

“Yours,” Starsky said in that weird verbal shorthand they shared that really meant, “It’s yours to choose.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” says Starsky. “Sounds great.”

“How about five in the morning?” Hutch loved busting his chops.

“Uh-uh,” Starsky protested. “It’s gonna be a three-course dinner.”

“How about a hamburger, fries, and a chocolate shake?” Hutch sassed back.

“No way! I’m talking about a broiled lobster, maybe. Maybe even a New York steak.”

“Com’on, open up,” Hutch groused, waiting at the passenger-side door as Starsky fished for his keys.

Hutch couldn’t remember what Starsky said next – it was something like, “Why do you look so ill?” or, “Buy your best buddy a meal” – because by then he was distracted by the sound of metal grinding on metal. He looked up to see a black and white punching its way out of a too-tight parking space and heading towards him and Starsky, pedal to the floorboard. Some instinct, what Hutch’s people called the daemon – the guiding spirit, the voice of inner wisdom – told him a bad scene was going down. He was already drawing his magnum when he noticed the Uzi hanging out the speeding cruiser’s passenger side window, aimed squarely at the partners by a thirty-something Anglo with medium-length brown hair. Even as Hutch yelled, “Starsky, get down!” he couldn’t stop being a cop. He promised himself he’d remember as much about the shooter as possible because he and Starsky would have to track the perp down later. Hutch hit the asphalt deck hard as the fake police car full of fake police continued to accelerate, making a sharp right, then another so it could head to the main gate and escape. He rolled and regained his feet, drew his weapon, and aimed at the shooter, hoping for a lucky shot, but he knew that Starsky was better at this kind of thing. Hutch called his name, expecting to hear his semi-auto blasting away any moment. But he heard nothing – no blasting – so he cheated a quick glance over his shoulder and called his partner’s name again.

“Starsky!”

“And where are all the other cops?” Hutch thought, his disbelief and anger rising. There must have been a dozen hanging out as he and Starsky walked to the Torino. He didn’t get why he was the only guy taking pot shots at the beyond-suspicious patrol car. And then it was on the street, racing away, far out of range. Hutch noted the direction for the APB he was going to broadcast in exactly three seconds. But first he had to check on Starsky, who could’ve had the wind knocked out of him when he dove for cover.

Hutch moved as fast as his feet could carry him, only to be stopped in his tracks as he rounded the Torino’s grill. There, curled on the pavement in a fetal position, was Starsky, his head resting in the well made by the back tire’s chrome rim. Hutch counted at least three entry wounds. And the blood! The amount of blood gushing from his partner’s torso was unbelievable. As Hutch stood there, his inner voice screamed, “Get moving or Starsky’s going to die, right here in this parking lot!” And that was enough to unfreeze him. He shouted orders to the stunned cops who were only now beginning to descend upon the crime scene. Hutch crashed to his knees beside Starsky, pressing the palms of his hands against two of the three wounds, when Bernie appeared beside him with a first aid kit.

“Tell me how to help, Hutch,” Bernie said in a shaky voice.

“Tear open a full roll of gauze and shove it directly in the bullet hole I’m not covering,” Hutch ordered succinctly before yelling, “Somebody call a Gods-be-damned ambulance!”

Bernie did as Hutch directed, his face a mask of tragedy and revulsion. Hutch could see that the color of Bernie’s face was white and he was sweating up a storm.

“Suck it up and pay attention, Bernie!” Hutch knew he had to keep his brother cop focused or he’d faint and be of no use to Starsky. “Open two more rolls and shove them into these wounds on my go sign. You got that?”

Bernie took a shuddering breath and did as he was told. “The kit only has two rolls of gauze in it, Hutch.”

“Then shove the last one in the top wound on a count of three!” Hutch, his hands coated in Starsky’s blood, counted down, and when he moved his hand away – just for a second, because Bernie was prepared and fast – gore arced from the wound, joining the growing puddle on the ground before the gauze plugged the hole. Hutch brought both hands to press on the remaining bullet wound. In the meantime, Bernie draped Starsky in a “space” blanket: one of those thin, silvery sheets developed by NASA that had become standard first-aid gear in just the past couple of years.

Bernie’s partner joined them then, but Hutch couldn’t remember his name – it was something like Archie or Aaron or Arlo – but right now he didn’t care because Starsky was gasping for breath, like a fish on a hot sidewalk. “You!” Hutch ordered, pointing with his chin at maybe-Archie. “Lift Starsky up into a sitting position. I’m going to move behind him and use my chest to put pressure on the exit wounds while I keep pressure on this entry wound.”

“Geez, Hutch,” said maybe-Archie. “They teach us at the Academy not to move gunshot victims.”

“See where these bullets have entered?” Hutch asked, his voice harsh, but not panicky. No, not panicky. Starsky needed him calm. In charge. Taking care of business. “Starsky’s bleeding internally. He’s drowning in his own blood. We’ve got to get him up now and let gravity pool some of this blood so that he can breathe until the ambulance gets here.”

“Okay, Hutch,” maybe-Archie and Bernie chorused. It only took a moment for the two men to get Starsky sitting up. They could see that the blood from the exit wounds had effectively glued the space blanket to his ravaged back.

Hutch moved behind Starsky and pressed his own back against the Torino’s driver’s side door. Then he brought Starsky into a tight clench between his legs.

“Where’s that fucking ambulance?” Hutch hissed. The parking lot was crawling with cops, but he didn’t hear a distinctive ambulance siren, not even in the distance.

“Hutch,” said Bernie carefully. “I don’t think we can wait for an ambulance. He don’t look good.”

Starsky’s head rested on Hutch’s shoulder, his gray face pointed skyward. Almost as terrifying as the amount  of blood he’d lost were the purplish-blue lips, a dead giveaway that he wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

That decided Hutch.

“Bernie, get your car. Memorial is five minutes from here. We’re gonna take him ourselves.”

The officer spun away to retrieve his cruiser.

By now, quite a crowd had gathered around Starsky and Hutch. The chatter of hand-held radios competed with the cruisers pulling out, lights and sirens on, a stream of angry bees leaving the hive, to join the chase for the shooters.

Just as Bernie pulled up his black and white, Dobey – puffing, blowing, and sweating so badly he looked like he’d just come out of the shower – joined his officers.

“Give us some damned room here,” Dobey ordered the uniformed gawkers, who obligingly took a step back. “And what are you two doing standing there with your thumbs up yo’ asses, Babcock and Simmons? Hit the streets! Find out who did this and bring ’em in!”

“Wait a minute, Cap,” Hutch said, his voice preternaturally calm. “We have to get Starsky in the back of Bernie’s cruiser. If we wait any longer for an ambulance, we might as well call the coroner’s wagon.

“Cap, you get his legs,” Hutch continued. “Babcock, you take his left arm, and Simmons you take his right.” Hutch waited the few seconds it took for everyone to get in place, then ordered, “Lift now!”

It was awkward, especially since the space blanket had come along for the ride, but the three of them lifted Starsky enough for Hutch to push off with his legs and, back still pressed against the Torino, manage to stand. He rushed over to the cruiser, got into the back seat, and asked the men cradling his partner to set him on his lap. Once Starsky was placed there, Hutch opened his legs wide, allowing his partner to slide down onto the seat. Then Hutch hugged him in an embrace so tight that it slowed the bleeding considerably. But Starsky’s pallor wasn’t improving, and Hutch was chanting, “Go, go, go!” to Bernie.

Bernie drove like a moonshiner with the revenuers on his tail, getting Hutch’s precious cargo to Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Department entrance in record time. But those few minutes felt like an eternity. The only thing that gave Hutch hope was the thready wheeze escaping through Starsky’s lips. Right now, that ghastly sound was more welcome than any sweet nothing Hutch could imagine his partner saying.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Twelve Hours Later, The Same Day

I’ve failed him, Hutch thought, waiting for the elevator that led to the basement parking garage, but in his head he was still staring through the glass observation window at the man who’d been his partner for the past nine months. Not his lover, no, even though they’d wanted each other. But the same strange circumstances that had caused them to meet and work together had prevented Hutch from allowing their relationship to get sexual. Or maybe something more. Protecting this man who was and yet was not his real lover had been his mission all along. How had he failed to see it? And what did this mean for his Starsky back home? Had the other Hutch failed as miserably at protecting his temporary partner as he had?

He was still waiting for the elevator when Huggy appeared at his side in a jingle of keys.

“Hutch.”

“Did Dobey send you after me?”

“Keys,” Huggy answered. “You can’t drive a car without keys.”

The doors finally parted. Hutch and Huggy stepped into the elevator together.

“Starsky’s gonna die, Hug,” Hutch husked, his voice a mix of rough and soft. “Starsky’s gonna die and there ain’t nothing anybody can do about it.” But even as he said it, Hutch knew there was something he could do about it – what he’d always done. Hit the streets, squeeze the rock until it bleeds, find that one clue that would allow him to unravel this whole unholy mess. Because he would be damned before he left this world with Starsky unavenged.

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Wednesday, May 16, 1979, A.D.

“Pimps and thieves,” Hutch thought bitterly as he exited the fancy office building of Jonathan Wells, Esquire. Some lawyers were no better than pimps and thieves. And Jonathan Wells didn’t know it, but Hutch was compiling a kill list and, so far, his name was at the top. When Starsky died, what did it matter to Hutch who he took out? He only hoped, if the same thing had happened to his Starsky, that the other Hutch was pulling together a kill list of his own.

But maybe the trip wasn’t entirely wasted. Huggy had snagged a page from Wells’ secretary’s phone log. Was it too much to imagine there would be a clue there? Hutch was just about at the end of his rope.

“I’ll tell you,” Hutch said to Huggy, “this – this thing, whatever it is, it’s a hell of a lot bigger than either one of us thought. Somebody’s got the power. Somebody’s got the control, right? Whoever it is is up there laughing at this puny little cop trying to chip away at a mountain.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Huggy. “You gotta keep pushin’. Maybe they’ll make a mistake.”

Hutch nodded, but he was only half listening. Instead, he was scanning the phone log Huggy had handed to him. “Bates? Bates? Six, seven, eight calls,” Hutch muttered aloud. “San Francisco area code. Who’s this guy Bates?” He looked up and about the plaza. “There’s a telephone,” Hutch said, changing direction. “Give me some change, will you?” he asked Huggy. “I’m out.”

Huggy rooted around in his pockets and came up with a handful of quarters, dimes, and nickels. Hutch traded the call log for the change, then he picked up the phone receiver. “What’s the number?”

Together, the friends placed the call, and all too soon Hutch was hanging up the receiver.

“What?” Huggy asked, his tone conveying plainly that he was worried about Hutch. “Who answered? Who’s Bates?

“I don’t know, I. . . .” Hutch paused, his thoughts racing. “At least I know now whose number this is.”

“Whose?” Huggy demanded.

“The man who turned down a chance at the presidency because it was a step down in power,” Hutch said, his voice nearly lost to the sounds of traffic.

“What?”

“Huggy, this number is . . . is Gunther Industries. It’s the private line to James Gunther.”

“So, what,” said Huggy, taking Hutch by the arm and getting them moving down the sidewalk towards Dobey’s car. “If he put the hit out on Starsky, he’s got to go down.”

“The kind of money this man has at his disposal makes him impenetrable,” Hutch explained.

“That all depends on what a person is willing to do,” Huggy said sagely, his implication clear to Hutch. “Sometimes you gotta cut a few corners.”

Just two cars away from their ride, they passed a large newsstand. In front of the display of magazines and newspapers, candy and chips, was a big blue cooler full of canned sodas. “I’m gonna get us a couple of Cokes,” Huggy announced. “Looks like my job is to keep you hydrated and Dobey fed.”

Hutch nodded absentmindedly and waited for Huggy to buy their drinks. A Coke sounded good. Hutch was thirsty. As the guy behind the counter made change, Hutch scanned the magazines to kill time. His eyes settled on the latest issue of Entrepreneur. What he saw made his blood run cold.

Directly beneath the masthead, the cover was emblazoned with a banner that blared, “Ernst & Young Announce Entrepreneur of the Year!” Under the banner was a photograph of an older male Anglo – expensive three-piece suit, white-haired, face seamed by time and too much sun, arms folded across his chest in the classic pose of power. Beneath the photo was the moniker JAMES MARSHAL GUNTHER. Hutch closed his eyes, recalling the rocking of the transfer van, the trip through the desert to the science station, the dossier he’d spent hours memorizing. That sixteen-year-old photo. He opened his eyes and picked up the magazine, staring intently at the cover portrait.

“Yes,” Hutch thought. More snow on the mountain, eyes more rheumy with age, same down-turned mouth. The very man. “I’m a fool,” Hutch said aloud, spinning around on one heel, frustrated, excited, scared all at once. His hands gripped the magazine so tightly that the pages badly crumpled.

“Hey!” cried the newsstand guy, waving a meaty hand at Huggy. “Your buddy is damaging the merchandise. You gotta pay for that!”

“Keep your shirt on.” Huggy dug into his wallet and pulled out two ones. “Keep the change.”

“Last of the big tippers,” the man grumbled but nevertheless slipped the nickel into his pocket.

“What’s got you jumpin’, Blondie?” Huggy asked once he’d caught up to Hutch, who was leaning against Dobey’s car. “Looks like you seen a ghost.”

“Do you know who this is?” Hutch held up the magazine.

Now it was Huggy’s turn to looked plagued by specters. “That’s ol’ Tastee Freez – the dude who made that crooked deal with my friend Amos.”

“What?”

“Remember when I told you somebody bought up most of Main Street?” Huggy asked. “And the new landlord was pricing me out of business?”

“Yeah,” said Hutch.

“That ol’ whitey on the cover is the dude who did the buying!”

“Are y-you telling me J-James Marshall Gunther came t-to The Pits?”

“Yes,” Huggy declared. “The third of January, nineteen-hundred and seventy-eight! This is the creep who smiled at me as Amos lay dying.”

“Gods be damned! The Science and Technology Directorate has done so much damage to this world,” Hutch thought angrily. “James Marshall Gunther! Iacobi is Latin for James and Mariscalus means Marshal!” The nickname “Bellator” was harder for Hutch to parse out. He quickly scanned his memory for everything he knew about the word, which meant warrior. What was it Cohen had said? Something like, “The warrior always returned with his shield, never on it.” Then it came to Hutch in a rush: Mariscalus’ father was from Gaul. Warrior in Old High Gaulish was Gunnar or, alternately, Gunther.

All that time, the name had been right there in front of him. Hutch felt like an idiot.

Then a worse thought came to him: he and he alone was responsible for Starsky’s injuries, his partner’s impending death. He was responsible for Huggy losing his business. Him. No one else. The puzzle would’ve been easy to solve had he been able to get out of his Empire mind and fully commit to integrating with this world. Gunther was in the papers and on radio and television news programs regularly. It had all been there in plain sight. How had he managed to screw things up so badly? He could have taken Mariscalus-cum-Gunther out months ago if he’d just used his head. If he’d—

Hutch staggered under a new weight. Even heavier. Mariscalus no longer existed in his world, but what if whoever had taken his place – and that was entirely probable – had contracted someone to rub out him and Starsky? If so, was his partner also fighting for his life in a hospital bed back home? He could be dead by now.

His Starsky. Dead or dying? No. Hutch couldn’t go there. Not now.

“Hutch! Hutch! Snap out of it!”

Slowly, Hutch came back to himself. Huggy was looking at him like he’d lost his mind. And who could blame him?

“You sayin’ this is the guy who put the hit out on Starsky?”

“Yes,” Hutch said, his anger working overtime to shove his fear aside. Temporarily, anyhow.

“Then I bet he killed Amos, too.” Huggy slammed his fist into his palm.

“I need another handful of change,” Hutch said. “I have a contact at the Internal Revenue Service, an Agent by the name of Wallenby, who’d be thrilled to learn that a filthy rich criminal is selling drugs and laundering money. His department has computers that make what we have at the station look like stone knives and bearskins. And while my IRS contact does his investigative magic,” Hutch said solemnly, “we’re going to sit the deathwatch with Starsky.”

“And when he dies,” Hutch thought bitterly, “I’m going to kill James Marshall Gunther if it’s the last thing I do on this world.”

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Monday, May 21, 1979, A.D.

Hutch paced, utterly beat, his nervous energy seemingly inexhaustible. Sometimes he dozed in the world’s most uncomfortable plaid chair, but even there he was never totally asleep. He was waiting, listening, anticipating that long monotone beep that would indicate Starsky’s heart had stopped beating again, perhaps forever. Hutch wanted to hold out hope – certainly, the medical staff hadn’t given up on Starsky – but it was hard, so hard to hope, when it was easier to start the grieving now.

Despite Hutch’s lack of optimism, the doctors had performed a couple of procedures. One was called . . . Hutch paused a moment to give his weary brain a moment to recall the medical term. He had it: thoracentesis. It involved pulling what looked like an ocean of murky, dark fluid from Starsky’s lungs. For the second procedure, a needle was inserted between Starsky’s ribs, into the space between his chest wall and his lungs, with equally grim results. But Hutch had to hand it to the doctors – Starsky’s oxygen levels had begun to climb from the moment the procedures were completed.

He’d allowed himself a smidgen of hope when Starsky’s surgeon said his O2 levels had improved so much that he could be extubated, the breathing tube removed. Then the man had snatched Hutch’s smidgen away. “He’s still in a coma. Even if his body completely heals, which is still a big ‘if’ at this point, he may never wake up. And if he does wake up, he could have irreversible brain damage. Lastly, even if he wakes up and his brain is intact, he has a very long recovery ahead of him. He’ll never work as a street officer again, Detective Hutchinson. You need to be prepared for all those possibilities.”

That was two days ago.

For all Hutch knew, the case against Mariscalus-cum-Gunther could also be in a coma, given the Feds’ propensity to move at a snail’s pace when it suited them. He’d called Wallenby repeatedly but kept getting the runaround –  the old, “I can’t discuss investigations” – to which Hutch had replied, “So you are investigating Gunther.” That was met with the passive, “It’s possible leads are being pursued,” and Hutch had pushed with, “What leads? Maybe I can help,” which brought the conversation full circle: “I can’t discuss investigations.”

Again, Hutch paced a circuit of the room, a weary lion patrolling his territory, only the nurse allowed on sufferance as Starsky needed constant medical observation. And despite the cadre of cops guarding the elevator, both ends of the hall, and Starsky’s door, supplemented by Dobey and Huggy sitting at the observation window in rotation, he knew Mariscalus’ money was enough to embolden an endless supply of paid hit men. It would never end as long as the enemy was alive.

“I don’t know what to do, Starsk,” Hutch murmured so that only his partner could hear him. He needed to talk to Starsky the same way he needed air to breathe. “I’m pushing the odds. I don’t know what to do. I mean, what if. . . ? What if. . . ? Oh, man, what am I talking about?” Hutch said miserably. “What am I talking about?”

It was then he turned to gaze upon the beloved face, still marred by white medical tape and drainage tubes. But there was something else.

Those gorgeous eyes.

They were open!

Open!

“Starsky? Starsk? You. . . . You’re awake! He’s awake!”

Hutch turned to the nurse on duty and clutched her shoulders, knocking the paperback book out of her hand. “Nurse, nurse, look! He’s awake, he’s. . . . He’s awake!” His joy knew no bounds. He bodily picked up the nurse and hugged her tightly, spinning her around the way he wished he could embrace Starsky and dance him around the room.

“He’s awake!” Hutch chanted. “He’s awake! He’s okay! He’s awake! He’s all right! He’s awake, he’s awake. He’s awake. He’s awake. He’s awake, he’s awake. He’s awake. He’s awake. He’s. . . . He’s awake. . . !”

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
San Francisco, California
Thirteen Hours Later, The Same Day

“At last we meet, Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator.”

Mariscalus-cum-Gunther gasped. He yanked open his desk drawer, scrabbled inside, and withdrew a pistol that he promptly pointed at Hutch.

“Going to kill me?” Hutch asked quietly, eyes blazing, his voice that of Jupiter Thunderer just before casting a deadly bolt. In this moment, live or die, Hutch knew he was invincible. If he died here, he’d have atoned for his failure to protect this Earth’s Starsky with his life. Even if one of the dozens of San Francisco police officers waiting outside had to come in, step over his dead body, and arrest Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator – aka James Marshall Gunther – one way or another, Hutch would have avenged his counterpart’s Starsky and made Mariscalus pay the blood price. “Try it.”

The old man kept his pistol trained on Hutch, who didn’t think Mariscalus was overeager to pull the trigger. “Probably thinks he can talk his way out of any situation,” Hutch thought. “Let him try.”

“That was my mistake,” said Gunther.

“What was?”

“Treating you like you were just another fly in the ointment,” Gunther said, his eyes glittering. Predatory. “Take this Rodin statuette, for example.” He pointed to a small bronze figure of a man, hunched over, fist to chin, seemingly deep in thought. “On our world, it is called The Poet. Here, The Thinker. I mistook you for a poet, Detective Hutchinson. Instead, I find you are a thinker. And that partner of yours! Pure Age of Bronze! But, of course, we call that one back home The Conquered Man. Two naked little men, one step above beat cops, responsible for the breakdown of my West Coast operation. Incomprehensible.”

“That ‘little’ man is my partner,” Hutch hissed.

“No, he is not,” Gunther asserted. “Your partner is in another place, far, far from here.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Hutch countered, equally assertive. “Starsky is my partner, whenever, wherever I find him. Always has been. Always will be.”

The harumph that met his pronouncement could have been Mariscalus clearing his throat or an editorial comment. Hutch didn’t give a damn either way.

“I suppose the Science and Technology Directorate said they would retrieve you, once you had completed your mission?”

“Yes,” Hutch answered, unafraid of sharing his secret with one from his own world.

“I would imagine part of your mission was to kill me. Tie up any lose ends. Correct?”

Hutch shrugged.

“Every man has his price, Detective Hutchinson. Go ahead. Arrest me. I am a wealthy man. I will surrender my passport. I am a solid member of the community. No matter how high they set my bail, I will be able to pay it. I have sufficient funds to keep my case tied up in the courts for years. Exactly how much time do you think I have left to live? Let me have that handful of years and I will tell you where I have hidden my dazzling trove on our Earth.”

“Trove. How quaint,” Hutch sneered.

“Think of it! The proceeds of a lifetime of embezzlement that you need only stretch out your hand to receive! All yours for the taking! What use do I have for it? I cannot return to the Empire. But you can. You will. Wealth enough to build a realm, keep you and your partner safe, and make you a modern-day Croesus. What say you, Sergeant Hutchinson?”

“Where? Where did you hide it?”

“In the city-state of San Francisco. Go to the Fort Mason necropolis. Within sight of the bay, just off Van Ness, you will find a modest, unkempt crypt. Inscribed over the locked door is ‘Warrior.’ Inside there are niches holding dozens of urns, each one containing gold, diamonds, bearer bonds. All tallied, worth over thirty million.”

“Do you honestly think there’s any amount of money that’ll make me forget what you did to my partner?”

The gun wavers, then lifts, the sight centering on Hutch’s chest.

“In a few minutes, half of the SFPD will storm your mansion,” Hutch announced. “If you think you can kill me and get away, you’re wrong. Every exit is covered. Everyone will be arrested. Just like, right now, everyone in your Las Vegas operation is being arrested. Bay City. Portland. San Diego. New York. London. Johannesburg. All are being rounded up. Dozens of your lieutenants are singing like birds.”

“Everyone who can tie me to a capital crime is dead,” Gunther said with a crooked grin. “Soldier.” He gave a nod to the body in the wingback chair. “Bates. He was my assistant.”

“Not everyone’s dead,” Hutch retorted. “Your man, Thomas, has kept his eyes and his ears open. He’s already turned himself in to the police outside. He’s eager to sell you out.”

“An uneducated servant? My attorneys will make short work of him on the stand,” Gunther said dismissively.

It was Hutch’s turn to smile, as he remembered watching the man who’d become his partner blink at him from his hospital bed, alive and awake, defying all the odds. Remembered dancing with Starsky’s nurse in circles, then later sharing the list of crooked businesses that tied Gunther and Federal Judge McClellen inextricably together. “Do you think your lackeys will be able to rattle a team of Internal Revenue Service forensic analysts? One with a stack of computer evidence a foot deep?”

The gun wavered, hovering in the general direction of Mariscalus’ temple.

“I have a deal for you,” Hutch said. “One that’s a lot more dignified than blasting your brains all over this nice office. One that preserves your reputation here and guarantees you never serve a day in prison.” Hutch stepped forward. Unafraid. He grabbed the old man’s crêpey hand and pointed the pistol at the ceiling as it discharged.

He pulled out his handcuffs and a folded piece of paper. “I’ll let you take a dose of your heart attack poison rather than go to jail if you’ll sign this bill of sale for the building at 406 Main and Fourth, Bay City, California.”

“Ah,” sighed Gunther. “Perhaps you don’t intend to return to the Empire, either.”

Hutch shook his head. “Just helping a friend out.” He put the expensive pen in Mariscalus’ hand. “Sign.”

With something that looked like amusement, Gunther signed the Deed of Conveyance. Later, Hutch would fabricate two witnesses before turning the deed over to Huggy.

“Now’s your chance to end all this neatly,” Hutch said. “Where do you keep your poisons? Or do you want to finish what’s left of your so-called assistant’s tea?”

“I have some in my pocket,” Gunther said distantly, as if he were already dying. He reached into his trouser pocket and retrieved a small glass vial. “I call this one Hadrian.”

“After the Emperor who died of a heart attack. Clever.”

“It’s good to have one of my own by me, here at the end. It’s good to be understood.”

“Fuck you,” Hutch snapped. “I don’t understand anything about you. You came here against your will. Sure. So did I. But your double was rich. You could have retired! By Dis Pater, you could’ve run for president! Instead, you ruined thousands of lives with your junk.”

Hutch moved behind the desk. He took Mariscalus by the shoulders and hefted him to his feet. He put the first cuff on the old man’s left wrist. “Take your medicine,” Hutch ordered. “It’s time to go.”

Using his free hand, Gunther thumbed off the stopper and downed the clear liquid in one gulp. Hutch caught his loose wrist and efficiently enclosed it in the second cuff.

“James Marshall Gunther, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. . . .”

 

CHAPTER XVI:
Nunc Me Vides, Iam Non

David Michaèl Starsky
Province of California, Bay City
Tuesday, 15 May 1979, J.C.

After they pooled their available cash to pay the fine and get the Torino out of hock, Starsky and Hutch headed into the station house so they could both change clothes. Besides wanting to get out of his dress uniform, Hutch desperately needed his old tennis shoes that he kept in his locker for just such an emergency. Both men gave their best “death glares” to anyone who so much as widened their eyes at Hutch’s sock-clad feet but were mostly met with a bevy of hands held in the “whatever” stick-up position, indicating no one cared that much to offer verbal commentary on the strange sight.

Once clad in their street clothes, the partners headed up to the bullpen to log-out and start their vacation.

“What do you say we drop by my place?” asked Hutch. “Pick up our fishing poles, drive into the mountains, find a little motel with a scenic view of a lake, and spend the next three days enjoying nature?”

“Nature,” groused Starsky. “If you want nature, we can have a picnic in the park, then go catch a creature double-feature: The Rebirth of Godzilla and Godzilla –The Gods’ Angry Messenger.”

“Let’s compromise,” Hutch proposed. “Since we didn’t get to eat at our own awards ceremony, let’s stop by The Pits for a late lunch, then go to the movies. After that, we can head back to my place, crash, and get up early for a day of fishing. We’ll drive back tomorrow evening, fry up our catch, and see what else catches our attention. Deal?”

“Yeah,” said Starsky, never a big fan of the great outdoors, being city born and bred, but he was willing to throw Hutch a sop now and then, just to keep him sweet.

They were leaving the bullpen when they noticed a quiet figure standing in the doorway. Starsky stopped dead in his tracks and Hutch bumped into him, unable to put on the breaks quickly enough.

Lurking at the door of their office was Marcus Korby.

The man had grown his hair back and shaved his mustache and was dressed in a smart three-piece suit. A pair of lightly tinted glasses obscured his eyes. It would take a very observant onlooker to ever associate this man with the long-departed “Dr. Cohen.”

“Kenneth, David,” Korby said affably, like an old friend dropping by. “I thought I’d stop in and see if you have time for lunch today.”

Starsky cast a cool glance at Hutch, not liking being ambushed publicly by this asshole. Hutch gave him a shrug that spoke volumes: What choice do we have?

“Sure,” said Hutch.

“Yeah, good to see you,” lied Starsky. “Let’s split before Dobey changes his mind and puts us back on the duty roster.”

The three men walked without uttering a single word. They took the long way to the service elevator that dumped out directly on the back parking level, which was where the Torino had been stashed. It was only when they were confident that they were completely alone that Korby spoke. “It’s time for the transfer. There’ll be an appropriate storm tonight in the Sheep Hole Valley Imperial Wilderness. I’ve established a new scientific station there. If we leave now, the drive will take about three hours.”

Starsky maintained a tense silence, noting that Hutch did the same.

“I’d ask if there’s anything you need to pack, but since nothing but the person is exchanged in the transfer, I think we may forgo a stop at your doppelganger’s apartment, eh, Detective Hutchinson?”

“Okay,” Hutch answered coolly.

Starsky could hear the stress in his voice, but he doubted Korby could.

“And since we won’t be needing your services, Detective Starsky, you may drive yourself home,” Korby said.

“Nope.” Starsky’s tone brooked no argument.

“It’s not wise for you to be seen as being involved in this . . . exchange,” Korby said with some tact. “If there should be . . . a mishap . . . I can keep your name out of the report. There’s no need to lose two useful men. Besides, once this affair is put to bed, you’ll soon be able to resume your extracurricular activities, Sergeant.”

“Who cares?” Starsky said, not giving a damn if he never did another lick of wet work for this asshole or the damned Science and Technology Directorate. “The way I see it, my life’ll be better if I never have to see your stupid mug again.”

If Korby intended to keep pressing his point, he never had a chance because the service elevator arrived. He had no choice but to follow Starsky and the other-worldly Hutch on board when the doors opened.

When they reached their floor, they got off and stepped into the small lobby, took a left, then were out the glass door that led from Precinct Operations to the parking lot. Starsky saw right away that an enormous black Lincoln Town Car was parked behind the Torino, blocking it in. In the driver’s seat of the Lincoln was a chauffeur. Outside were two hulking thugs – probably Korby’s private operatives and bodyguards – and a slender young man in a neat lab tunic biding his time in the back seat.

“You don’t have to do this, Hutch,” Starsky said, not caring if Korby heard him.

“You know I do,” Hutch replied. “It’s the only way you’ll get your Hutch back and I can go home to my Starsky.”

“What if these dickweeds fuck it up?” Starsky was deathly serious.

Hutch shrugged, as if to say, “What, indeed?”

Then Starsky said, “If we have to we can—” Then his voice trailed out. Starsky didn’t even know what he was suggesting anymore: That half a loaf was better than none?

“—Let it be, Starsk,” Hutch finished for him resignedly as he stepped up to the back door of the Town Car.

At that moment, Starsky heard the sound of metal grinding on metal. He looked up to see a black and white punching its way out of a too-tight parking space and heading towards him and his partner, pedal to the floorboard. Some instinct told him a bad scene was going down. He was already drawing his semi-auto when he saw the Uzi hanging out the speeding cruiser’s passenger side window, aimed squarely at him and Hutch by a thirty-something Anglo with medium-length brown hair.

Just then, Hutch yelled, “Starsky, get down!” and tackled him, knocking them both just below a hail of automatic fire. In a tangle of limbs, they hit the asphalt deck hard as the fake police car full of fake cops continued to accelerate, making a sharp right, then another so it could head to the main gate and escape. Hutch rolled and regained his feet first, drawing his weapon. Starsky joined him a half-second later. Both men aimed at the shooter, hoping for a lucky shot.

The black and white was now on the street, racing away, far out of range, but Starsky noted the direction for the APB he was going to broadcast in exactly three seconds. It was then he spotted the scattered corpses around him and Hutch. Korby was obviously dead, having taken a slug to the face. His two operatives were in bad shape, stitched with multiple bullet wounds. Even as Starsky watched, one of the men stopped breathing. The chauffeur was slumped over the steering wheel.

“Starsky!” Hutch yelled, opening the Lincoln’s driver’s side door and dumping out the body.

“What’re you doing?” Starsky yelled back.

“What does it look like? I’m moving the heap that’s blocking your car. Call it in. And don’t leave without me.”

“Got it!” Starsky was already digging for his keys and charging to the Torino. But even as he started the engine, a black thought filled his mind: “Now I’ll never get my Hutch back.”

David Michahèl Starsky
  Six Hours Later, Same Day

“Want to hear something strange?” Hutch asked as he two-finger typed his report of the day’s incident.

“Do I!” Starsky answered with exaggerated enthusiasm, typing his own report just as laboriously.

“As I stepped up to the Lincoln,” Hutch said, “the guy in the back seat ducked, stretching out flat on the floorboards. It made me wonder what was getting ready to go down. That’s how I had enough time to tackle you.”

“Are you thinking this is one big, weird coincidence?”

“No,” said Hutch. “Do you think it’s a coincidence?”

Starsky shook his head. “Hey, Minnie,” he called out.

“What ’cha need, honey?” Minnie’s voice was soothing, as always.

“Where are they holding that kid who was in the back of the Lincoln when the shooting went down?”

“Don’t know what ’cha talking about, Starsky,” Minnie said, confusion written all over her face.

“There was a kid,” Hutch said, taking over the narrative. “Fresh-faced. About nineteen, maybe twenty years old. Light brown skin, short afro, dressed in a gray tunic, like something you might see in a science lab?”

“Hutch, baby. Wasn’t anybody matching that description caught at the scene.”

“What the fuck?” Hutch mouthed to his partner, who answered with “what can you do?” hands.

An hour later they’d finished their reports and were finally ready to call it a day. Then, as luck would have it, Dobey called them into his office.

“Sit down,” he commanded. “I have a theory about this shooting. I want to see if it aligns with your thinking.”

“We’re all ears, Cap’n,” Starsky said.

“Consul McClellen put out multiple hits on you two,” Dobey summarized. “My best guess is that those bozos in the cruiser were already on retainer and decided to finish the contract. Probably didn’t know McClellen was dead. What’re your thoughts?”

Starsky gave his partner a very discreet side-eyed glance. If Dobey found out about the Science and Technology Directorate’s little switcheroo with Hutch, Gods only knew what would happen to them. “Nothing good,” thought Starsky. So far, Korby’s fake ID had made it through the system: Marius Smithers had been a single, relatively well-to-do man who worked as a highly paid contractor for the Army. His two bodyguards, now both conveniently dead, were former special forces who’d recently mustered out and accepted private employment with Smithers. The local Army base had already sent one of their own coroners to collect the bodies, insisting their investigative arm – the Imperial Department of Army Criminal Investigations – would take over the case. The military police had felt it was far more likely their contractor had been the assassins’ target as opposed to two lowly police officers.

“That makes a whole lot of sense, Captain,” Hutch said. “Regardless of what those Army guys said.”

“Yeah,” agreed Starsky. “It sure felt personal to me. I think those other guys were just caught in the crossfire.”

“Collateral damage,” Dobey said sagely, bobbing his head. “Well, that tears it.”

“What?” asked Hutch.

“You two are too hot to have on the job right now. I can’t have the precinct getting shot up because contract killers are too stupid to read the papers. I want you to take some time off. Once word gets on the street that McClellan isn’t around to make a final payout to his guns for hire, I’m confident that any remaining killers will pocket their retainers and shut up shop.”

“How much time off?” Starsky asked.

“And will it be paid?” Hutch added.

“If you’re still alive come the first of June, and you haven’t been shot at, you can come back to work,” Dobey said. “And you’ll draw half pay while you’re gone. And here’s some incentive: if you do come back alive, I’ll see that the other half of your salary is restored. But I’m not wasting money on dead men walking. You hear me?”

“We hear you, sir,” the detectives said in unison.

“Then get your narrow asses out of here,” Dobey grumped, already turning his attention to a stack of papers on his desk.

Starsky carefully saluted, glad that his partner did the same, then they hightailed it out of the station house before some other disaster could strike them.

Once they were safely ensconced in the Torino, Starsky had an idea.

“Hey, Hutch?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah,” said Hutch despondently. “Me, too.”

Not liking the fact that Hutch sounded down, and – more significantly – hadn’t made a quip about being shocked that Starsky had the ability to think, he said, “You first.”

“Well,” said Hutch, “I’m thinking you’re stuck with me, what with Korby being dead. He was our only contact with this mysterious ‘Science and Technology Directorate.’”

Starsky brought his right hand to rest on Hutch’s thigh, willing some of his strength into the man. “Do you wanna know what I’ve been thinking?”

“Sure,” Hutch said in the same sad monotone.

“Remember how you wanted to get out of town, go fishing?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you feel about going hunting instead?”

“What do you have in mind?” Hutch asked, exhibiting some curiosity.

“I’m thinking we should make our way to the Sheep Hole Valley Imperial Wilderness and see if we can find something that looks like a science station. What do you think of that?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Starsky could see the big, bright smile that gradually bloomed on Hutch’s face.

“That’s a terrific idea, Starsk!” But then Hutch’s demeanor changed, lightning fast. “But even if we do find this base, I don’t know how to operate a-a t-teleporter and I bet you don’t either.”

“I’m betting this Directorate doesn’t put all its eggs in one basket,” Starsky persisted. “And Korby didn’t invent this device. Do you remember the name he gave out when you were in the hospital and I was . . . indisposed?”

Starsky saw the refined features kink in thought.

“It was something like Elliot,” Hutch said.

“Yeah, something like Elliot, but not Elliot.” Starsky wished he hadn’t been doped up when Korby came to see them at Memorial. “Elios? Was it Elios?”

“Elius!” cried Hutch, triumphant.

“That’s right!” Starsky enthused. “Elius! I think, once we find this science station, that we’ll also find this Elius character. And when we do, we’ll explain to him, in words of one syllable or less, why we think it’s a good idea for him to send you home and bring back my Hutch. Can you dig it?”

“I can totally dig it, Starsk,” Hutch affirmed, his voice infused with happiness – and something else. Something alien to Starsky. It took him a moment to identify the emotion but, with a little effort, he had it.

Hope. It was hope.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Sheep Hole Valley Imperial Wilderness
Sunday, 28 May 1979, J.C.

“Man, who knew this valley was nearly 300 square miles,” I say to Starsky as I keep the Torino moving at a steady ten miles per hour down what could only charitably be called a dirt road. It was more of a mogul-like conglomerate of potholes and small boulders interspersed with a little bit of dirt. It was my turn to drive and Starsky’s turn to scan the landscape with the binoculars we’d brought along. We’d spent the last thirteen days searching the desert basin, part of the greater Mojave Desert, and our nights sleeping in cheap motels with names like El Rancho Delores, the Starlight Inn, and the Black Horse.

“Why can’t we find this place?” Starsky bitches. “My car is out of alignment and my suspension is gonna be shot if we don’t find it soon.”

“We’d better find it soon,” I warn. “Dobey’s expecting us back on the job in four days. And besides,” I say, risking a quick glimpse at the threatening clouds on the horizon, “we don’t want to be tooling around out here in a storm. Flash floods can be deadly. I say let’s give it another hour, then call it.”

“Where’ve they hidden this fucking station?” Starsky continues to grouse, scrutinizing the desert carefully for any sign of a manmade structure. “We’ve been down every deer trail, cow path, goat track, farm road, dry creek bed, and this laughable excuse for a road out here.”

“Maybe it isn’t on a road, Starsk,” I say, an awful idea coming to me. “What if they helicoptered in? We’ll never find this station if you can only get to it by air.”

“Nah,” says Starsky. “Huggy knows a guy who ‘delivers things.’” Starsky says it with such discretion that I know neither one of us wants to know exactly what he delivers. “Goes by the name of ‘The Black Baron.’ He’s got a small plane. If we have to, we’ll come back when we’ve got some leave saved up and search from the sky. Then, once we spy the joint, we’ll either hike it or find out if Huggy or this Baron has a buddy who can chopper us in.”

It’s a good plan, I think, but I’m nevertheless disappointed. I so desperately want to get home to my Starsky – if he’s still alive, that is. Any delay feels like a species of death.

“Okay,” I comment, trying to keep my feelings to myself. “I’m going to keep driving until I find a safe place to turn around.”

We ramble along about another forty minutes on the narrow road, increasingly hemmed in by boulders. I’m beginning to think I may have to put the car in reverse for an hour to get back to the turn we made to get on this so-called road. But not yet. I follow the bend in the crappy trail around five huge chunks of igneous rock sticking up from the sand like the fingers of a buried giant. Starsky’s still keeping a sharp eye peeled when I notice something on the horizon.

“Hey,” I say, tugging on his arm to get his attention, then point straight ahead to guide him to where I’m looking. “What’s that? A phone booth?”

With a small bob of his head, Starsky indicates that he sees what I see and turns the binoculars on the tiny structure, frantically dialing it into focus. “Not a phone booth,” he reports. “It kinda looks like a guard shack. Some kind of shack, anyway.”

I let off the gas, allowing the Torino to roll to a stop, even as I know we’ve already crept close enough to be seen. “Is it manned?”

“I don’t see anybody,” Starsky assures after a moment’s observation. “It’s got a cattle gate and a barbed-wire fence.”

“Sounds promising.” I’m relieved to have finally found something out here in the desert.

“It could be just an abandoned military base,” says Starsky. “There were dozens of training camps built out here in the ‘40s when Gaul rebelled.”

“Or it could be an old sheep station that’s out of season.”

We both push down our sunglasses and stare into each other’s eyes.

“Do you think it’s an abandoned training camp?”

“No,” Starsky says. “Do you think that’s an off-season sheep station?”

“No.”

“What’re we going to do?” I ask.

“Go take a look?”

“And if somebody with a gun stops us at the gate, what’re we going to do then? Pretend we’re lost?”

“I vote we shoot ’em,” Starsky offers. “Or take ‘em hostage and make ’em show us where this ‘teleporter’ is. What do think of them apples?”

I don’t bother to answer with anything more than a nod. I place my magnum on my lap and put the Torino in drive.

David Michahèl Starsky
  Five Minutes Later

They were close enough now that Starsky could see that what they’d found was a Bonafide guard shack, the small kind that can hold only one man. He had his semi-auto on his lap, just like Hutch had his magnum out. As they drove closer, Starsky reminded Hutch to sit as far back in the seat as he could when they pulled up.

“I don’t want to accidently shoot you.”

“I’d really appreciate that you didn’t,” Hutch told him, his voice infused with equal measures of sincerity and smartassery.

He parallel parked along the side of the tiny building and, as was recommended by a clever guy he knew, sat far back in the driver’s seat while Starsky lifted his weapon, ready to draw down on whomever might pop up. But instead of a living guard, he saw a desiccated mummy of a man, dressed in a private’s Army uniform, bent facedown over his little desk, seated – perhaps for all eternity – over his game of solitaire. He could also see that the dead guard had taken a shot to the head. “Obviously,” Starsky thought, “someone had the same idea as me.”

“Ugh,” said Hutch.

“Damn,” said Starsky. “How long do you think he’s been like that?”

“Locked up in a tiny glass box that heats up like an oven, conveniently where the flies can’t get at him? Maybe a couple of weeks. Maybe less.”

“Wait here,” Starsky ordered. “I’ll get the gate.”

“Hang on a sec. The signs says DANGER, so the fence must be electrified.”

In the end, the two of them got out of the car and walked a short way down both sides of the fence. They also observed the simple metal gate – the kind used by cattle ranchers to close cow pens.

“I don’t hear any mechanical sounds,” Starsky said. “No clicking or humming. I think it’s dead. On the other hand, I don’t particularly want to get electrocuted if my theory is wrong.”

“I know a way we can test this.” Hutch made a slow circle and seemed to find what he was looking for. He walked a few steps to a small bush with waxy leaves. Starsky watched as he snapped off a branch and brought it back.

“Pee-yew,” chirped Starsky. “That reeks! Smells like a burning tire.”

“You’re right about that. It’s a creosote bush.”

“So, what are we going to do with that stinky stick?”

“You are going to carefully take a piss on it, without getting any piss on my hands. Then I’m going to touch the fence with this wet stick. Wood conducts electricity poorly,” Hutch explained. “If that fence is still hot, I’ll feel a mild tingling, but nothing like I would if I actually touched it with my bare hand.”

“Okay,” said Starsky, pretty impressed by the depth of Hutch’s knowledge but willing to die before he’d admit it. “But why do I have to piss on it? Why can’t you?”

“Because my tank is on empty and you always have to go,” Hutch reasoned.

Starsky snorted but began to unbutton and unzip his jeans without further protest. It was true what Hutch said, though. He did have to go. He’d been a real pain in the ass as a kid, what with his tiny bladder. He supposed that made him a pain in the ass as an adult, too.

The dirty deed done, Starsky put his dick away as Hutch walked first to the gate and touched it with the wet branch. Evidently satisfied with his experiment, he moved to touch the fences on either side of the gate.

“Anything?”

“No, Starsk,” Hutch said. “Dead as a doornail. Whatever happened here, I’d say we’ve missed the action.”

Gingerly at first, Hutch lifted the latch and opened the gate. When he wasn’t immediately fried, he swung the gate wide and gestured for Starsky to get behind the wheel and drive the Torino through, which he did. Starsky paused long enough for Hutch to climb into the passenger seat, then they continued to move forward cautiously.

“Hey,” said Hutch, his voice funny, but not in the “ha-ha-funny” way. “You don’t think they’d plant landmines out here, do you?”

“You’re just a bushel of bad ideas today,” Starsky griped, putting the car in park. He thought for a moment, reviewing everything he remembered from his Legionnaire’s training during his days in the service of the Emperor. “Landmines are anti-personnel weapons,” he said at last. “Not designed to kill but to take a foot off a man, injure him badly enough that he slows down the platoon, cause them to waste precious time and resources taking care of him. Also, it’s meant to cripple, not to kill. The enemy figures that if you send an impressive number of soldiers home missing a limb, ma and pa citizen will be inclined to complain to their senator to end the civil conflict. So,” Starsky wrapped up, “while I ain’t thrilled about potentially hurting my baby, I’d much rather lose a tire or a fender than a foot.”

Hutch nodded, indicating he’d followed Starsky’s train of thought.

Once again, Starsky put the Torino in gear and crept ahead unhurriedly. In less than a hundred yards, the dirt road took a steep downward turn into a basin that had once been a lake thousands of years ago but was now a dazzling white salt flat. It was here that he and Hutch found two small buildings: a Quonset hut of the type used to house staffers and a structure of cinderblocks and concrete. Starsky immediately noted the forest of metal lightning rods that populated the roof of the cinderblock building and what sounded like the throaty purr of a gasoline generator.

“I think we’re found our experimental station,” Starsky said in his best gumshoe voice.

“I think you’re right,” Hutch agreed eagerly, already opening his door. “Let’s go check it out.”

“Slow your roll, Blintz,” Starsky cautioned, even as he exited the car. “I know you’re anxious to go home, but we don’t know how many guys are still creeping around out here. What we do know for sure, though, is that at least one person is alive, because someone had to take out the gatehouse guard. So, stay frosty, buddy. Let’s clear the hut first, then see what we can find over in the lightning-rod-o-rama building. We cool?”

“We cool,” Hutch echoed.

Guns drawn, they covered each other and cleared the hut – which had obviously been used as a bunkhouse-living space – by the numbers and without incident. They found two more dissected corpses: one naked in the shower, the other in the pose of sleep in his bunk. They weren’t nearly as well-preserved as the gate guard, as the flies had gotten to them before their flesh had completely dried out.

“Looks like this place was being shut down. Permanently,” Starsky said.

Grimacing, Hutch looked down at the half-rotted, half-mummified body of the shower guy and said nothing.

“Ready to clear the other building?” Starsky asked.

“That won’t be necessary, officers,” said a light tenor voice behind them.

Starsky spun around, training his weapon on the slim young man in the doorway of the Quonset hut. He was pleased to feel Hutch at his side, hear the sound of his partner’s pistol being cocked loudly in the silence. The man held his hands up, demonstrating that he had no weapons – no visible weapons, Starsky clarified internally.

“I know you,” said Hutch. “You’re the kid who was in the back of the Lincoln.”

“I’ve recently turned twenty-one,” answered the young man. “That hardly makes me a ‘kid.’”

“Oh, to be young, and dumb, and twenty-one again,” thought Starsky. “No offense, pal, but to a couple of old fossils like us, you look like a kid,” Starsky rebutted. “Wanna tell us who you are and why you’re here?”

“I think you both know who I am.”

“You’re Elius,” Hutch said without a hint of doubt.

The boy-man nodded once.

“You got a last name?” Starsky asked.

“Erickson. Elius Theodorus Erickson.”

“You don’t look much like an Erickson,” said Starsky suspiciously.

“The Empire is one big melting pot,” Erickson reminded the partners, scrunching both shoulders up towards his ears. “Teutonic father, Caribbean mother.”

“I think you know why we’re here,” Hutch said, obviously done with introductions.

“Yes. I’ve been waiting for you,” Erickson said. “May I put my hands down? My fingertips are starting to tingle.”

“In a minute,” Starsky said. Trusting his partner to cover him, he walked over to the kid and searched him thoroughly. “He’s clean, Hutch.” At Starsky’s signal, Erickson put down his hands and shook the circulation back into them. “Well, you don’t have any weapons on you, but that doesn’t exactly make you clean. How did you arrange the hit on Korby and his pussy posse?”

“I’ve acquired a silent investor in my future endeavors,” Erickson revealed. “In exchange for taking Korby and Company off the board, he’ll get ten percent of my earnings each year until he dies. Since he’s a mere colonel at the end of his active service, the extra income will be most welcome. And let me tell you, officers, I may be young but I’m a very good earner.”

“How did you meet this colonel?” Hutch asked. “And how do you know you can trust him?”

“He was part of the original experiment,” Erickson said, becoming more candid by the moment. “When Sondicus McPherson realized he’d been picked to participate because he was expendable, he decided then and there to cut a private deal with me. It’s taken a little while to put everything in place, but I’m finally free of Korby’s influence.”

“Who else besides Korby knows about the experiment?” Starsky’s patience was running thin.

“Korby’s predecessor was executed for inefficiency,” Erickson said. “Do you two mind if we talk in the station? It really stinks in here.”

“Well,” said Starsky, “he who smelt it dealt it.”

“If that’s your way of asking did I get rid of the guards, then yes. I did, indeed, ‘dealt it.’” Erickson didn’t sound the least bit repentant. “They were all barbaric bastards who tormented me unrelentingly, so don’t waste any time mourning for them. I certainly won’t.”

Hutch rolled his eyes, then led the way – with Starsky bringing up the rear – across the open space between the hut and the station, the salty ground beneath their feet crunching almost like snow. “How do we know that you’re not going to similarly dispose of us, given that we know about your penchant for weird science, payola, and murder?”

“Simply by being here, I would think I’ve already demonstrated my goodwill,” Erickson said. “I never wanted to transport people. Just grain. It was the Directorate that decided to enslave me illegally, keep me under lock and key, and pervert my technology. Besides, I need something from you two.”

“And what might that be?” Hutch asked, wary.

“The colonel is a good guy, but he doesn’t have the kind of contacts that can manufacture a really authentic fake identity,” explained Erickson. “I figured you two, being police officers, probably have some connections that can make that happen. I also need help getting out of the New World Provinces. If you can get me to Antigua, my mother’s family can take me in and help me reestablish myself. My maternal grandfather, whom my mother called a ‘tough old reprobate,’ has relatives and connections from Cuba to Brazil.”

“Sounds like somebody we know,” Starsky said, thinking of Huggy. He looked at his partner, giving him the “what do you think?” brows. Hutch answered with the “I think the kid’s all right” shrug, then said, “Go ahead, Starsk. Tell him.”

Starsky cracked his knuckles. “I know a guy in the coroner’s office who can make you authentic papers by conveniently labeling a corpse a John Doe and giving you that guy’s identity. No record of a death, body goes into Potter’s Field, you and your new name and credentials take a little plane trip with a fella we know called the Baron. Then you’re home free, kid,” Starsky said, tying up the package with a bow. “Now, what do we get for all that?”

“You both get your partners back,” Erickson said, his hand on the doorknob to the only entrance on this side of the building.

“Uh, uh, uh,” Hutch cautioned as Erickson started to open the door. The quantum physics expert froze in place, and Hutch scooted up close behind him, jamming his weapon into the young man’s back. “Just in case you have any little surprises inside, remember that you’ll be the first one taken out.”

“I understand,” said Erickson. “But you have nothing to fear.”

“Let us be the judge of that,” Starsky advised, moving into position beside the doorway.

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Two Hours Later

It turns out the kid was being straight with us. He opened the door onto a concrete landing and a steep set of concrete stairs. We went down to what, I guess, is best called the laboratory – or should that be the transporter room?

In any case, here in the center of the room is a humpbacked disc, about three feet in diameter, covered with what looks like diamonds but can’t possibly be diamonds. Right? Above this disc, attached to the ceiling, is an identical disc. Additionally, a thick cable runs across the ceiling, down the wall, across the floor, and feeds into both of these discs.

In one corner of the room is an empty sugar sack and a stack of liquid oxygen canisters attached to a timer. In the opposite corner is a console of some kind, like something I’ve seen pictured in Life Magazine in an article about NASA. Only this console doesn’t send you into space – its job, Erickson explains, is to send you somewhere else.

Just looking at the numerous dials and gauges gives me a queasy feeling.

“What’s with the sugar and the O2?” Starsky asks.

“Just a rather large homemade bomb,” Erickson says, his voice matter-of-fact. “When we’re done here today, Detective, the last thing we’ll do is blow the station.”

Starsky gives me a look that says, “The kid’s thought of everything.”

It’s then I feel a boom of thunder sufficiently loud enough to penetrate what, for all intents and purposes, is a bunker. The lights dim briefly, and I can see Erickson’s face glow as a gauge on the console spikes and casts its eerie green luminescence upward.

“Soon, we’ll be able to attempt the transfer,” says Erickson.

“Attempt?” Starsky scoffs. “What’s this ‘attempt’ bullshit?”

“Easy partner,” I say, not wanting to spook the kid while he’s adjusting his dials.

“You have no idea of the difficulty associated with this process,” Erickson says with a hint of exasperation. “The only reason I can come up for why this process works at all is that there really is a way for two or more particles to become irrevocably linked. That means distance, space, time, and dimension are meaningless in the face of something intangible and non-measurable, something that Korby and the members of the Fundamental Fysiks called ‘fate.’ And if you think it was easy for me, as a man of science, to admit that, you’d be sadly mistaken.”

“So, what you’re saying,” grumbles Starsky, his voice growing harsher, “is that you don’t know what in Hades you’re doing and you’re making this up as you go along. Have I got that right?”

“What’s left to say,” I murmur, feeling a tiny glimmer of optimism that maybe, just maybe, my Starsky and I are bound together by some cosmic force that’s bigger than both of us. That sounds, well, comforting. Like there’s something more omniscient than a twenty-one-year-old genius from a cutthroat world that uses murder as a tool of advancement as easily as I give Starsky a hard time about his ridiculous car. I can only hope. I reach out and place my palm on Starsky’s shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze to let him know I’m okay with what’s going down. “Just tell me what to do, Erickson.”

“Go stand in the center of the disc,” he says. “And no matter what, don’t get off it until I say so.”

I turn away from him, towards the bejeweled discs, which are throbbing with light now, in time with each other, one above on the ceiling, and one below on the floor.

Now it’s Starsky’s turn to place a hand on my shoulder, stopping my forward movement.

“I really meant it when I said you don’t have to do this,” he says, his expression simultaneously firm and conflicted. “We don’t know if that thing will even work. What if it kills you?”

“What am I going to do?” I ask. “Stay here with you?”

“We could . . . ” Starsky’s Adam’s apple bobs, then he’s able to speak again. “If we gotta, we can figure something out. Together.”

“I don’t belong here, Starsk,” I say. “We’ve been lucky, so far, that I haven’t gotten you killed seven ways from Sunday. I just don’t have . . . .” I struggle to find the right phrase. “I’m a seed in alien soil. I don’t have what it takes to thrive here. I’ve been able to survive, sure, but the thought of living here forever. . . . ” I shrug, hoping Starsky understands what I won’t put into words.

“I get you, Hutch,” he says. “Safe journey.”

“Say hello to the other me, okay?” I say in a half-hearted stab at a joke. “Tell him I did my best to take care of you. And I’m sorry for, you know, what happened to your back.”

“That was me being an ass,” Starsky protests. “I got what I had coming. You shouldn’t feel guilty. Take a page from my book. I’m not even sore at Dobey. He was just doing his job and keeping order.”

“That was you being protective of me. Didn’t want to let me out of your sight.”

“Well, maybe,” Starsky replies, briefly looking up and away.

“Goodbye, Starsk,” I say, stepping up on the disc.

Starsky doesn’t answer in kind. He just nods. Who knows? Maybe he’s afraid his voice will crack. Can’t look weak in front of a stranger.

“I’ll endeavor to transport on the next lightning strike,” Erickson announces, his voice excited yet strained.

“Get on with it!” Starsky orders.

In an effort to contain my fear, I keep my gaze locked on Starsky’s eyes, drawing strength from them. From him.

“Energizing,” says Erickson.

And then the room dissolves in a tingling shower of gold and silver energy.

 

Chapter 17:
Now You See Me – Now You Don’t

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Bay City, California
Sunday, May 28, 1978, A.D.

“You’ve got another week, week and a half, before Memorial transfers you to the rehabilitation hospital,” Hutch told Starsky.

“What’re you hiding behind your back?” Starsky asked, his voice still soft and hoarse from the intubations associated with not one but three surgeries.

“You’re like a cross between a little kid and a bloodhound,” Hutch said with fond exasperation. “You can smell presents from a hundred paces.”

“You got me a present?” Starsky sounded shocked.

Hutch wondered if his doppelganger were such a skinflint that he wouldn’t buy his partner a gift while he was laid up in the hospital. Poor Starsky.

“Don’t have to say it like I’ve never got you a gift before,” he said. “Surely, I’ve gotten you something over the years that’s worth remembering.”

“A certificate for a tree? A star name after me? Tickets to the George C. Page Museum? If you want to call those things gifts, go ahead,” Starsky said. “And don’t call me Shirley.”

“Hey,” Hutch bristled. “I thought you liked prehistoric animals, like mammoths and sabretooth tigers.”

“I do!”

“That’s what the George C. Page Museum’s all about, dummy – the fossilized animals they found in the La Brea Tar Pits.”

“Which would’ve been nice to know before the tickets expired,” Starsky groused. “How the hell was I supposed to know who George C. Page was? Thought he was just some actor or opera singer or Professor of Smart Hutchinson Stuff that you learned about in college.”

“Let’s see if I can start a new tradition,” Hutch said, ignoring what could be a dig or Starsky just being tired, cranky, and in pain. The hospital was weaning him off the high-octane opiates and transitioning him to safer, mid-level medications – heavy stuff, but lightweight compared to morphine.

“Ta-da!” Hutch brought his hands out from behind his back with a flourish. In them was a hardbound book with a green cover. Starsky made “grabby hands” – the gesture employed by all children who want their treat immediately – and Hutch obliged, passing the book over to big-kid hands still marred by IV bruises. For just a moment, he felt lightheaded. He’d come so close to losing the Starsky of this world. And, despite his best efforts, he still couldn’t help but wonder if his Starsky were suffering a similar fate – or worse – back home. Losing either man on his watch was insupportable. He closed his eyes until the room stopped spinning.

Thankfully, Starsky was too busy reading the dust jacket of his new book to notice Hutch’s brief period of distress.

“You got me Michael Grant’s History of Rome,” Starsky exclaimed, his excitement self-evident. “Man, I really dig his writing. Grant also wrote this terrific book called The Jews in the Roman World. I’ve had my eye on this one since it came out in January but was gonna wait ’til they released it in paperback. He’s a great author, but $8.95 for a hardcover is just too much on a cop’s salary.”

“Score one for the home team,” Hutch thought, happy to have made Starsky so happy.

“Come here and let’s see if he included any maps,” Starsky urged, scooching over in the hospital bed to make room for Hutch.

Dave Starsky
A Moment Later

“Come here and let’s see if he included any maps,” I urge, scooching over in the hospital bed to make room for Hutch.

Hutch lays down beside me, just like last night, and the night before, and the night before that, lifting the sheets and blanket and stretching out those long legs of his before covering them up. Hutch slips his left hand under mine, helping hold up the heavy hardback. I’m tempted to tell him I’m okay, he doesn’t have to do that anymore, I’m strong enough to read a book without him supporting it. But I love the feel of his strong hand over mine, so I keep my mouth shut.

I flip through the pages twice before I give a little grunt of disappointment. “That’s all right,” I soothe when I see Hutch frown, as if he’d made a mistake and got me the wrong book. “You should read Grant’s Atlas of Classical History, Hutch. I never regretted paying full price for that one! I’ll get on an ancient history jag and find myself cracking it open bunches. Almost a hundred maps. Bring it over here, when you have a chance. I’ll rotate between the new book and the old one. Besides,” I say, giving him a light punch on the arm, “the book you gave me has a bunch of illustrations, which is really terrific.”

“I saw that atlas when I searched your shelves to make sure you didn’t already own The History of Rome,” says Hutch. “By the way, Gordo, do you even have a filing system for your books? It took me forever to go through them all.”

“Sure, I do,” I answer with a smile, secretly delighted that Hutch went to the trouble of combing through my library to see what I already had and what I might like.

“It’s sure as Hades not alphabetical by title or author, and you don’t use the Dewey Decimal System, so don’t lie and pretend you do.” Again, that hint of something tender, not pissy, in his tone. “Want to share?”

“Tsk-tsk, Detective Hutchinson,” I tease, but gently, not wanting to break the mood. “I would’ve thought a man of close observational abilities like yourself would’ve figured it out.”

“Not been feeling very detective-y of late,” Hutch says. “I think I blew my wad on Gunther and his goons. By the way, the Reno PD just picked up the precinct shooters. Those jackasses still had their weapons in the police cruiser they stole, which they’d parked behind their apartment with the guns in the trunk.”

I tsk-tsk a second time. “Another example of the abysmal decay of the criminal community,” I opine, nevertheless relieved that the last stitch in the case has been sewn up, the button men finally in custody. “Please tell me the Reno PD didn’t screw up the arrest.”

“Airtight,” Hutch says, and I give a sigh of relief. “I talked on the phone to the lead investigator, a sharp guy named Langston Robinson. Older-sounding dude – voice kinda reminds me of James Earl Jones doing Darth Vader, but without the respirator sounds.”

I catch the moment Hutch winces, feel his regret at saying the word “respirator.” And just when he would’ve pulled his hand away and put some space between us, I shift my right hand, placing it over his left one, making a Hutch hand sandwich, holding on tight, not giving a damn whether it’s kosher or not, not caring that my new book has tumbled to the floor.

I feel my Adam’s apple bob up and down as I try to swallow the feeling that swamps me when I realize I never want to let go of Hutch, that I could sit here like this forever. Well, maybe not forever. We’d get bedsores. But long enough to let this tender, fragile thing between us lay down some roots, grow a little bigger, get a little stronger, turn and seek the light, so that a stupid remark or a crappy mood doesn’t have a chance of nipping it in the bud. “See, Hutch,” I think. “I really was listening when you were blah blah blahing about your plants.”

Hutch is looking straight at me, quizzical, like he doesn’t know what’s going on. But I can see his pulse point leaping in that long, beautiful neck, see the fine flare of his nostrils, as if he’s suddenly finding it harder to breathe.

“So,” he says, his voice breathy. “How d-do you organize your books?”

“By the year and order I read them in,” I answer. “It helps me remember what I’ve read, like—” I pause a moment, thinking. “I can see myself when and where I was when I first read a book, and I can recall what I read better by thinking, ‘I was in the old apartment with the stoplight, reading in bed. The sheets were blue and I could see myself in the overhead mirror.’ Or, ‘I can taste the day-old cup of coffee at the station, it’s late and the bullpen is empty, and I can see the piggybank between us while you finish two-finger typing your report so we can finally go home after another red-letter day on the job.’”

“You’re talking about mnemonic memory devices,” Hutch says admiringly. “Ways to remember something by teaming it up with a visual image or a smell or a taste or a sound, like playing an album in the background or eating a peppermint while studying for a test. Pretty smart, Starsk.”

“I’m using demonic memory devices?” I ask, astonished, feeling all kinds of smart but a little worried about the name.

“NEE-mon-nick, mushbrain,” Hutch enunciates. Not DEE-mon-nick.”

“Oh, that’s better,” I say, relieved. “And I already know how I want to remember The History of Rome.” Holding on tight to his hand, so he can’t get away, I lean in and press my lips to Hutch’s – no tongue, ‘cause I’m not a big spit swapper – just a light, clean kiss, the kind that says, “I love you but I’m afraid I’ll be rejected by you.”

Hutch returns the gentle pressure, as if he might break me if he were too rough, and who knows? Maybe he could. Sometimes I feel like the two-hundred-something stitches are all that’s holding me together, inside and out.

Finally, we break apart, if for no other reason than we both need to breathe. Now I feel myself panting, hungry for more. But I gotta test which way the wind’s blowing.

“The ball’s in your court, tall, blond, and handsome,” I say. “What do you say we get a room?”

“We have a room,” Hutch answers with what looks like a rueful smile curling the corner of his lips, but it’s hard to tell with that damned mustache in the way. “And I don’t particularly want to get ejected from this hospital again,” he adds, no doubt referring to the hullabaloo from a few nights ago, when the guys snuck in for a late-night, high-end picnic, only to set off the fire alarm and the sprinkler system. That got the local fire department (who just love their police brethren – as if!) over here and caused every hospital security guard to descend upon my room like the Keystone Kops. When they threw out Dobey, Huggy, and Hutch, I thought they might throw me out, too. Cruising on four pain pills and feeling no pain at all, I would’ve been happy to get the bum’s rush myself. I wasn’t ready for the party to end.

“Be patient,” Hutch says, his expression unexpectedly a little sad. “Soon, you’ll have everything you deserve and more. Just . . . just think about me, sometimes, when you’re reading the book I got you.”

“You blowing me off again, Hutchinson?” I ask, trying to keep things neutral but guessing I sound a little desperate.

 Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
A Moment Later

“You blowing me off again, Hutchinson?”

Hutch wished he could blow this man. Give him the blow job of his life. Flesh still not knit, bones wire-laced or hammered together with permanent steel pins, spleen lost, liver lacerated, both lungs compromised . . . Hutch wondered if Starsky could even get it up. But he knew that wasn’t what Starsky was really asking for. He wanted to know if they could finally, truly be together. In the aftermath of betrayal, loss, and a brutal attack that should have left Starsky dead with his head resting in one of the Torino’s chrome wheel rims, Hutch wanted to give this long-suffering man everything he deserved. Unfortunately, he didn’t have what Starsky deserved, but he knew someone who did. It was just a matter of time. And hope.

“Hope,” Hutch thought. “I feel hope!” Hope that the other Hutch returned soon to this Starsky and had the sense the Gods gave a goose to love and cherish his partner until the day he died – and may that be many years hence! Hope that Hutch could be reunited with his Starsky. Hope that his Starsky was alive and fit and ready to be consumed with love, because Hutch was ready for the feast, having tasted the appetizer a few seconds ago, thoroughly starved the last nine months.

Another wave of something passed though him. Fondness, yes. Lust, too, but temporarily dampened given the depravities committed upon the body of the man in his care, his partner in this time and place, de facto be damned. But the feeling was more than emotion, Hutch realized. With a sharp tug, he pulled his hand free of Starsky’s grip and staggered to his feet, unintentionally taking the bed linens with him. Feet tangled in all that fabric, Hutch fell to the floor, catching himself on his hands and knees.

“Hutch! What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Looking up from his place on the cold tiles, Hutch could see that Starsky was watching him with mild panic in his eyes. “Probably mild because that’s the most he can feel, given the drugs he’s on,” Hutch thought.

“I-I’m okay,” Hutch said, but the second the words passed his lips, he knew they were lies. He wasn’t okay. Anything but. The room was suddenly too hot, too cold, too hot. Once again, he was dizzy. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand just yet, but he managed to kneel, his hands on his thighs in an attempt not to pitch forward and crack his skull open in front of Starsky. Then the unmistakable scent of ozone filled his nostrils – a pungent, sharp, and somewhat metallic stench, like chlorine bleach or the smell of an electrical spark. It was then that Hutch noticed every hair on his arms was standing at attention. He knew. He knew. . . .

“I’m calling the nurse,” Starsky told him.

“No! Don’t!” Hutch tried to sound healthy and sane. He was failing miserably, so he tired a different tact. “Everything’s going to be all right, Starsk.” He looked at his partner, saw that the thick, dark brown curls were crackling with electricity, standing on end, reminding Hutch of the time he’d built lightning in a Coke bottle in freshman chemistry class.

Lightning!

He felt as if his body were suddenly made of glittering sand and the ocean was engulfing him, dissolving him, pulling him – not out to sea, but somewhere else. Unlike the last time this happened, Hutch’s world wasn’t one of white-hot agony. Instead, it felt like he was at the center of a thunderstorm of gold and silver sequins.

“I wonder,” he thought, “if this is what it feels like to die . . . or to be born.” But he knew there was no more time for thought. Just a final action.

“Goodbye, Starsk!” Hutch shouted.

“Bullshit!” Starsky cried out, his stunning blue eyes wide with shock and fright.

Then Hutch felt nothing. His body, nothing. He collapsed upon himself, surrounded by a haze of metallic-toned energy, as if he were in the middle of a swarm of benign bees, feeling himself fade away, all to the anguished cry of Huuuuutch!

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
A Few Moments Later

From far away I can hear someone speak my name: “Hutch.” I look up from my all-fours position on the floor directly into Starsky’s wide, fear-filled eyes.

“Hutch,” Starsky says, his voice choked, his face pale. “What . . . what just happened to you?”

I’m calming down, catching my breath, doing my best to regain my composure considering Starsky’s obvious distress. The first thing I do is get to my feet. Only when I’m upright do I realize I’m in a hospital. That’s Starsky in a hospital bed, his hands and arms dotted with bruises from what I recognize are old IV sites and numerous blood draws. I move immediately to his side, sit down on the edge of the hospital bed, and take his hand in mine.

“There’s plenty of time for me to tell you what happened to me,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice from breaking. I can see down Starsky’s pajama top that his torso is crisscrossed with bandages. Immediately, my mind goes to the precinct parking lot shooters. Did that happen here, too? But how did Starsky – my Starsky – get hurt? Didn’t the other Hutch take care of business while I was away?

“No,” protests Starsky. “You’re gonna tell me right fucking now what the fuck just fucking happened! You looked like you vanished in . . . in a cloud of gold and silver sprinkles, and I’m not waiting another second to hear your explanation. And that includes telling me where the fuck you lost your mustache.”

Mustache?

“I’ll tell you,” I say. “Everything. The whole, long, fucked-up story. But first, can you please, please, tell me you’re all right?”

“The doctors say I’m doing pretty good for a guy who died,” Starsky says. “But you know this, Hutch. You heard the medical update just this morning.”

I think I can feel the color draining from my face. “Are y-you g-going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Starsky says definitively, his tone self-assured. “But you don’t look so good, Hutch,” he informs me. “Pick up the blankets and lay down with me. No reason you can’t be comfortable while telling me your ‘fucked-up’ story.”

I lie down next to the man I love more than anyone or anything in this world, the right side of my body pressed tight to his left side. I’ve missed him – the real him – more than I can possibly express.

“Pee-yew!” Starsky scrunches up his face. “You smell like burning tires.”

I bring my hands to my face. I can smell creosote sap on my hands. There are no creosote bushes here in this hospital. I broke that branch off over there, on that other, crueler Earth.

It was real, I reassure myself. It was all real . . . but I’m home now. With Starsky.

The love of my life is staring at me with expectant eyes – the most beautiful eyes in the world.

Where to begin?

“It all started nine months ago,” I open with. “I was in my greenhouse, missing you like crazy while you were in Brooklyn taking care of your mother. There was a big storm brewing, but I decided to go for a walk anyway, thinking it would distract me from constant thoughts about you and how far away you were from me. . . . ”

 

Epilogue:
Survival is the Greatest Gift of Love

Dave Starsky
Bay City, California
Saturday, December 22, 1979, A.D.

I was in the hospital nearly a month before they sent me to a rehabilitation center. I spent a total of five months in rehab. Had to be re-hospitalized four times: once for a staph infection that got in one of the bullet holes that took forever to close; once for pneumonia; and twice for follow-up procedures to release some of the scar tissue, to help restore more of my range of motion. The first two incidents were pretty scary. I was so sick I could’ve died. But every time that thought hit me, I would fight back harder. I couldn’t do that to Hutch again – I mean, I couldn’t do that to my Hutch. And no matter where I was, my Hutch came to see me every single day.

On his days off, he would sneak in a sleeping bag and a camp mattress and spend the night hidden between my bed and the wall farthest from the door, so the night staff wouldn’t see him and throw him out. We’d hold hands until one of us fell asleep. By week three, Ernesto on the night shift took pity on us and quietly moved one of those hospital-style La-Z-Boy chairs into my room. And Hutch didn’t have to sleep on the floor no more.

While I was still in the hospital, shortly after the shooting, the other Hutch wrapped up his part of the Gunther case. With the old man dead of a heart attack while in San Francisco PD custody, there wasn’t much left for that Hutch to do. A handful of depositions, a stack of paperwork a mile high, and that was it. The Feds and the IRS took over and finished burning down what was left of Gunther’s empire after the other Hutch was through with it. Then my Hutch came back and took six weeks of personal leave. At first, I thought it was so he could spend more time with me – which he did. But why he really took it, he’d told me later, was so he could get some help for himself. It took a couple of tries, but Hutch finally found a shrink who was willing to really listen to what had happened. He helped Hutch get a lot of weird and heavy shit off his chest. I didn’t know if my partner’s personal Sigmund Freud privately thought he was delusional, but when they were together, Hutch said, the guy treated everything like it’d been real.

Like it’d been real.

It still blows my mind that this bizarre, impossible thing happened to him. To us. To them.

Sometimes, I think about that other Hutch. The months we spent together. From the very beginning, a part of me knew something wasn’t right. But nobody could’ve guessed exactly how not right. Impossible. Yet, I knew that my “partner” wasn’t Hutch, wasn’t my Hutch. At times I would stay up late, thinking about what went wrong between us. Ask myself crazy questions like, Did Hutch have a brain tumor? But in the background there was always that lightning strike. Change in personality was a possibility, said the doctor. Why look for a hard answer when there was an easy one, right there? Now I wonder why I hadn’t gone with my gut instead of my head. But even if I had figured it out, what was I gonna do – have him arrested for being an illegal alien?

No. Things played out the way they had to play out. Sometimes, though . . . sometimes I think how it might have ended if other-Hutch had taken me up on my offer to be a real couple after I got back from Brooklyn. What would that have been like? From the moment I got home, I knew “Hutch” was off. For the first time, I didn’t completely trust him, something that’d never happened before. If I and other-Hutch had gotten together, would I have felt different? When Gunther’s goons came after us in the precinct parking lot, would I have ducked when he yelled, “Starsky, get down!” at me? Or would I have continued to draw my piece, thinking I knew better, that I could get them before they got me? I’ll never know for sure, but I think – if I’d had my Hutch – I think I would’ve listened to him, would’ve hit the pavement, and maybe avoided being Mixmastered by a machinegun.

Shoulda. Coulda. Woulda.

Most of the time, I don’t think about the past. That could make a person crazy, and I don’t want to be crazy. I want to be happy. I am happy. Me and Hutch finally got things figured out. And, strangely enough, we got a shove in the right direction from someone I would’ve never suspected: Hutch’s dad.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I’d gotten over the pneumonia and been transferred back to the rehab center. I’d been in bed for half an hour and was weak as a watered-down Coke and feeling sad. It was as if all the work I’d already put in there was for nothing, and now I was back to square one. I wasn’t in the mood for a pep talk and I knew Hutch knew it. Instead, my partner had held my hand and stroked my hair, not saying anything, just letting me know he was there, when we heard someone knocking on my door. The nursing staff didn’t usually knock, and the door was standing open, so both of us had looked to see who could be coming to visit. Immediately, I gripped Hutch’s hand tight. He returned my hold, as if he’d never let go. The big paw in my hair stilled, then slid away.

In the doorway, dressed in a three-piece gray suit, was an older version of Hutch but also the other Hutch – a little heavier, like him, though his hair was shorter. But he had the same mustache, only it was gray instead of gold. My tired brain didn’t know what to think. In addition to alternate universes, were we getting a dose of time travel, too? What the hell?

It was then that Hutch broke the fraught silence. “Hello, Father,” he’d said levelly. “What are you doing here?”

Geez! It’s Hutch’s dad, I remembered thinking. Thank God. I wasn’t up for any more weirdness.

“I’m sorry to disturb your rest, Detective Starsky,” Mr. Hutchinson said to me. “And I’m sorry to come unannounced, son,” he said, turning to Hutch. “But your answering machine was full, and when I called your captain to leave a message, he said you were on leave and could be reached at home.” Hutch’s father stopped speaking, seemed to think for a moment, then said apologetically, “I could have sent a telegram, but I didn’t want to risk being told to stay away. I needed to talk to you, Ken, and to your partner.”

“I’m not interested in rehashing the past,” Hutch told him. “Anything you want to tell me you can send on a postcard.”

“I understand, son.” Hutchinson, Sr. gave a regretful-looking shake of his head. “I have a lot to answer for. I know that. But if you’ll give me a minute, I’d like to start making up for that past.”

“Now’s not a good time.” Hutch continued to hold my hand, as if daring his old man to say something. “Starsky’s tired. He doesn’t need you wearing him out more.”

“I understand. I’ll be quick.”

“No—” Hutch started, but then I overrode him.

“It’s okay, Mr. Hutchi’son,” I rasped, my throat still sore from the latest intubation. “You can have your say, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to stay awake if it’s long.”

“Please call me Andrew, Detective Starsky.”

“Only if you’ll call me Dave or Starsky,” I said, trying to lighten the mood in the room.

The old man – still hale and handsome, despite his age – smiled at me. In that moment, I knew what my golden guy would look like in another thirty or forty years, and I liked what I saw. Was looking forward to every one of those years together. Was eager to start the clock. But first I had to get well.

“To begin with,” Andrew said, “I want to tell you how proud I am of you, son.” I could see the shine in his eyes. Could feel the warmth and sincerity in his voice as he addressed Hutch.

Then he turned to face me. “You may not know it, Dave, but I’m a member of the Minnesota Republican Caucus and of the Republican National Committee. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but I was a major advocate in the effort to convince James Gunther to run for president. It was your work, gentlemen, that potentially kept a monster out of the White House.”

“That wasn’t me,” I said. “I’d already tapped out. It was all Hutch, with a little help from our friend Huggy.” I said this with real admiration. Other-Hutch, just like my guy, is a one-of-kind detective. And I was just as proud of my Hutch as his father was.

Still holding my hand, Hutch shrugged. “He wasn’t going to ever run for office. It would have been a step down in power.”

“Nevertheless, I was a fool who backed a black horse,” Andrew insisted. “And it was my boy who stopped the devil dead in his tracks.”

“I’ll be forty in a few years, Father. That hardly makes me your ‘boy.’”

“I know, Ken. You’ve done a man’s job, and that’s made me see things in a different light. I’d like to start mending fences, if you’ll let me.”

Hutch caught my eye as he considered his father’s words. I nodded encouragement. “Now’s not the time or the place,” he finally said. “But if you want to have dinner in the diner across the street, I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

“I’ll be there,” Andrew promised. “But I have one more item on my agenda and it concerns you, Dave.”

I felt Hutch bristle at the word “agenda.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut my partner off at the pass. “Yeah?” I asked, wishing I didn’t sound like the Marlboro man after a bad night out. “What’s that?”

“I know you’ve been busy with your recovery and probably haven’t had a chance to think about the legal ramifications of your position,” Andrew began.

“What ‘legal ramifications?’” I was confused.

“At the time of his death, separate from his drug empire, James Marshall Gunther still had many legally recognized businesses as well as significant cash and investment holdings,” Andrew said solemnly, but with a hint of something else – maybe anger? “You deserve to be handsomely compensated for the damage you’ve suffered at this man’s behest. I’ve taken the liberty of assigning my top attorney to liaise pro bono with a local firm to handle your case. I intend to squeeze out of his legitimate estate every penny that’s due to you.”

“Wow,” I said, stunned. It hadn’t occurred to me that such a thing was possible. Most of the nutjobs who’d shot me in the past were broke scumbags. “Guess I’m lucky someone rich tried to off me.”

“‘Only sue people who’ve got money,’” Hutch said, his tone making it sound like he was quoting someone else.

“That’s right, son,” Andrew heartily agreed. “I’m sure you two will want to discuss the matter, and I won’t be offended if you have your own attorney you want to use, Dave. Just let me know how you’d like to proceed.”

“Yeah,” I grated jokingly. “I’ll have my secretary get back to you.”

Hutch’s dad chuckled, then became serious again. “I’ll leave you now, and I’ll see you soon, Ken. But before I go—” Andrew paused, as if weighing what he wanted to say. “—I want to thank you both for your service. Together, you’ve made the world a safer, better place.”

And that was the start of Hutch reconciling with his family and them coming to the realization that I was part of the package. Hutch was sure his dad would drop out of his life again once we announced we were a couple, and that would be that. But it turned out the ol’ guy and his wife, Martha, were ready to have their son back in their lives, even if it meant getting a second son in the process. Hell, if me and Hutch could get married, we would, and then I’d be their son-in-law for real.

But all this happened later, over Thanksgiving, when Hutch’s whole family – Andrew, Martha, and his kid sister Sandra Marisipio, or Sandy, as she liked to be called – came to visit. I’d only been home at Venice Place a few weeks, having finally graduated from rehab on Halloween. And man, was I glad to leave the rehab center. I took it as a good omen because it marked exactly one year since me and Hutch had first slept together. Yeah. I know. We had a rough start, and that was because of me. But I can’t be blamed for the science-fiction freakshow that became our lives soon after.

And, in all fairness, rehab wasn’t all work and no play. After Hutch’s dad come to see us the weekend before the Fourth of July, next week – on the fourth itself – the whole Dobey clan came to visit. Edith had made me a red velvet cake with white icing and blueberries. Rosie and Cal donated some of their sparklers to be candles, so I wouldn’t completely miss out on the fireworks. And except that it was daylight, and it was cake and not veal and antipasto, and nobody was drunk, and the sprinkler system didn’t go off, and the fire department didn’t show up, it reminded me of that night in the hospital, when my three very heavy dudes got ejected from Memorial.

And that brings me to today. Three days ’til Christmas and, for once, Hutch has pulled out all the stops. Of course, with Hutch, there’s always a sting in the tail. He insisted on decorating the “new” side of our apartment, the side that’s been stripped to the studs and cored out like a cantaloupe. Dozens of strands of twinkle lights hang on all four walls. There’s a real tree decorated with red and white tinsel. And in the corner, where the library will be, wreaths with electric candles glow in every window. Everything looks terrific from my seat on one of the two folding chairs and the card table we’ve set up.

Yup. Hutch’s neighbor moved out this past summer. And now that Hutch owns the building – I mean, we own it, ‘cause he put my name on the deed, right beside his – he decided we needed a little more room, seeing as how we intended to live together. The only problem? We’re broke. My disability pay is only sixty percent of my old salary, and Hutch wiped out his savings putting a down payment on Venice Place. While I was in rehab, we’d had fun making plans, drawing the new layouts we imagined on the backs of pizza boxes. Hutch kept asking me, “What kind of space do you want?” and I kept saying, “I dunno,” but I gave it some serious thought. Hutch had his greenhouse. What would be my dedicated space in the home we were making together?

The next time Huggy came to see me, I sent him on an errand.

“Hug, can you get me some home, uh, magazines? For decorating and remodeling and stuff?”

“What?” Huggy’s eyebrows disappeared under the brim of the white Panama hat he was sporting that day. “Somethin’ like Southern Living?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Does it have pictures of rooms in it?”

“Do I look like I read Southern Living? Ask me a question about Ebony.”

“Just go to a big newsstand and buy me one of everything that has the word house, home, apartment, or architecture in the title, got it?”

Huggy pulled out of his pocket what looked like an old betting slip, produced a golf pencil from somewhere else, and said, “I got it. What else you need?”

“A pair of scissors, some tape, glue, and a notebook of some kind, like, maybe, a sketchbook.”

“Need me to get you some Crayons to go along with all that?” Huggy asked sarcastically.

“Sure,” I replied, just to rag him on. “And a lollypop.”

“I’ll be back,” he said.

True to his word, Huggy came back with everything my domestic little heart desired, including a big stack of magazines – more than I’d imagined – and a bag of lollypops, just to be cute. That afternoon, while Hutch was at work, I started my art project while sucking on a Charm’s Cherry Blow Pop.

At first, I ripped about half the magazine pages out. Each room, each layout, seemed better than the last. Pictures of dens, bedrooms, offices, home libraries, hobby rooms, home studios, and yeah, even some pictures of greenhouses. I was thinking, now that we (and the bank) owned the place, maybe we could eventually put in more skylights or maybe add a glass wall to the greenhouse to let in more light, you know? Kinda bring the outdoors in. Hutch deserved some goodness, too. I had the nurse’s aide promise to help me hide everything before Hutch arrived, or I wouldn’t let the nurse unpack, repack, and dress the bullet wound in my back that just wouldn’t close.

That’s how I entertained myself for several weeks. Playing with my pictures during the day, weeding out the losers and narrowing down the winners. At last, I was ready to pull it all together and did so with the same care and quiet kinda gusto that I bring to my ships in glass bottles. When I was done, the double-page layouts in the sketchbook looked really good. At last, on the Ides of August, as other-Hutch would’ve said, I was ready to share with my Hutch – and told him so.

“You know,” Hutch said, ever ready to correct me. “There’s no such thing as the ‘Ides of August.’”

I didn’t even care, I was so much in love.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Blintz.” I pulled out the book I’d been reading, the one the other Hutch gave me. I pointed to the page that had a picture of a fresco showing a goddess with a deer. “Turns out the Romans had a festival every year to celebrate Diana on the fifteen of August – like I said, the Ides of August – so there, smarty pants.”

Hutch took the book, scanned the page, then closed it decisively and set it on the bedside table. “Why are you reading this?” he asked, sounding hurt, hand resting on the green cover. “Let me get you something else. I saw in the Sunday paper there’s a new history book that’s on the bestseller list, something like The Long Storm.”

“I saw that in the papers, too,” I said. “And it’s called Been in the Storm Too Long. I like Civil War books. Pick it up for me, when you get a chance. Uh, please.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. “B-but why are you reading his book. Do you . . . do you miss him?”

Oh, Hutch. Always so up in your head. “I missed you, dummy! Every minute of every day. Even when I didn’t know he wasn’t you, I still missed you.” I took the book from under Hutch’s lax hand and hefted it. “I’m reading this because, well, ‘cause I want to better understand what happened. I thought, maybe, if I understood his world, where it all started way back in the day, that – I don’t know – I could close the door on a lot of what happened. Sorta like when you move out of an apartment, and it’s all empty, you take a last long look to remember the place. Not the way it was, but the way it is, ‘cause it’s forever changed and you’re not coming back.” I paused, realizing my mouth had run away with me. “Shit! Where did all that come from?” I asked him.

“We haven’t talked a lot about what happened.”

“Yeah. Been a little busy here, Hutch,” I said, indicating my hospital gown, the crappy hospital bed with its maxi-pad mattress, and the half-a-dozen bottles of medicine on the nightstand.

He pulled up the plastic chair that he practically lived in, when he wasn’t living the life of Riley in the hospital La-Z-Boy, and took my hand in his, pushing Michael Grant’s History of Rome away. “What I should’ve said is that we haven’t had a lot of time to talk about what happened.”

“No,” I said simply, feeling at peace with where we were and what we were doing. “It kills me that you had it so hard, being away from home so long. I don’t know how you did it.”

“Wasn’t like I had a choice,” Hutch said, sounding sad. “It was strange – every day I was surrounded by ten thousand little things that weren’t right. I knew I wasn’t home. On some level I even had to know that I wasn’t with you, but I needed you, needed him – your double – just to survive.”

“Did I – I mean him – did he hurt you?” It was the first time I’d dared to ask. I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Not the way you mean,” he assured. “It wasn’t like he beat me up, except for the one time he backhanded me when I was checked out on the bathroom floor. He was a tougher, harder version of you. A real product of his environment.” Hutch had that thousand-mile stare he sometimes gets. He was with me, holding my hand like it was an anchor and a riptide was trying to pull him out to sea. But he was also there, I sensed, in – to borrow from Star Trek, one of my all-time favorite TV shows – the Mirror Universe. “Did I tell you,” Hutch volunteered, “that the best way to move up in rank was by assassination?”

My heart skipped a beat and then it was me holding on for dear life.

“That Starsky had my back, every step of the way,” Hutch said, sounding even sadder. “He even figured out there’d been some kind of switcheroo. Helped send me home.”

“I’m glad this other me wasn’t a total asshole.”

“Oh, he was a total asshole, just not to me. At least, no more than you usually are.”

“Hey!” I protested. “I’m not an asshole.”

“You don’t want to get me started, Starsk,” Hutch said wearily. And he was right. I didn’t want to fight about water under the bridge.

“If it’s any comfort, your twin was a total asshole, too.” I gave a short laugh. “He even slept with a chick I was dating, on the same day, just to get me pissed off at him and her.” I tried not to even think Kira’s name, for fear she’d be conjured up like the ghost of Molly Turgiss from Green Acres. Then a new thought came to me. “You know, I was lonely. You were here, but you weren’t really here – know what I mean?”

He nodded.

“I got involved with this very evolved policewoman, way too fast,” I said. “I’m talking three dates and I was ready to pick out a wedding ring and a king-sized bed. In retrospect, I was looking for what you and I had, what I thought we had, but your double didn’t want no part of me. At least, that’s what he said, but he acted different. Like I was a steak and he wanted to swallow me whole. Well, some of the time.” Huh. Then a new idea occurred to me. “Maybe the other Hutch slept with that woman to keep the path clear for me and you.” At Hutch’s hand signal to carry on, I shared this next tidbit, one I’d given a lot of thought. “I’m pretty sure our twins were shacking up. Probably still are.”

“They’re everything but married,” he said solemnly. “We – we s-slept together.”

It took me a moment to find my tongue. “I kinda figured,” I said evenly. “You couldn’t know it wasn’t me, and by the time I got back from staying with Ma, I was ready to jump your bones and do everything in my power to make you mine. It only makes sense that other-Starsky would feel the same way.”

“I thought . . . you’d be mad,” Hutch whispered, sounding strangled, like something was caught in his throat. I squeezed his hand, not needing words to tell him that everything was all right. “You know,” he said, “your double had quite the temper that, by comparison, makes yours look like a Zippo versus a volcano. Everybody was afraid of him, except his Hutch. But. . . .” Here he paused, and I carefully watched the play of emotions on his face: anger, fear, affection, whimsy. “It was hard for that Starsky to show any other feeling besides anger. Something . . . something about my pitiful naiveté brought out a side of him that I don’t think even he knew existed.” Hutch’s eyes were hooded, almost like they were too heavy to keep open, but I could still see a hint of those beautiful baby blues, rimmed and glistening with unshed tears.

“What else could you do in that dangerous, crazy, mixed-up world but rely on me, even if it wasn’t me?” I said, meaning it. “How’s that ol’ song go? ‘Love the one you’re with?’”

At that, he graced me with a small smile. “Did you and he ever—?”

“Have sex?”

Hutch shrugged.

“Toward the end there, we kissed. I wanted to take it further, but he said, ‘Be patient. Soon, you’ll have everything you deserve and more.’ And he was right. You’re the genuine article, babe.”

Hutch released me, stood up, then put his hands on either side of my pillows, almost like he was getting ready to do a push-up. He slowly lowered himself down and kissed me, at first softly, then thoroughly. I hoped I gave back as good as I got, but that would be hard. Hutch is a terrific kisser.

When we finally broke apart, Hutch said, “What’s this?” and drew the sketchbook out from underneath the pillows where I’d stashed it.

“Just a little art project I’ve been working on,” I said mock-modestly, even as I felt a grin stretching across my face.

He pulled the chair back up, then handed me the sketchbook. I spun it around so Hutch could better see. Then I gave him a tour of the best parts: the magazine picture with the double couches facing each other; the round coffee table cut from a catalogue article, which I imagined covering with art and photography books; the walls lined with tall bookcases filled with all the books I currently owned and the ones I wanted to get. The guest room and bathroom, ‘cause my mother said, ‘There’s always room for one more.’ And then my two favorite spaces. . . .

“You know how you’re always asking me what ‘my space’ should be? Well, here it is,” I announced proudly. “It’s not to scale – especially since I made it out of strips of black construction paper pasted down with a Pritt glue-stick, then made the furniture by tracing stuff from Architectural Digest – but it’s good enough to get a close idea of what I’m talking about.”

“Starsk,” Hutch said, his wonder crystal clear. “Th-this is awesome! A hobby room!”

“The room mirrors your greenhouse,” I elaborated further. “And I figure we can get a couple of windows installed on the sides facing each other so we can wave, or play goofy face-off, or just generally keep an eye on each other. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Hutch answered softly. “I know exactly what you mean. But what about this?” I watched as his long, elegant index finger – ah, those musician’s hands! – traced the room I’d dreamt up and drawn, just inside the stairway door.

“You know how to read,” I reminded him, feeling a little embarrassed.

“It says ‘Dance Floor/Yoga Space.’”

“Well, Padma made me do yoga here to improve my flexibility and help let go of my anger at being so fucked up by Gunther’s goons.” I huffed a laugh. “I never thought it would work. And you, my green guy – Mister Goat’s Milk from the Co-op, Mister Rocky Mountain High – are gonna learn how to do yoga with me. I figure the rest of the time we could use that room to slow dance, since that’s the only kind of dancing you can do without putting both our lives in danger.”

“Hey!” Hutch objected.

“That’s what the horses eat, and just like them you got two left feet.”

My partner made a blatting sound that, if you squinted your ears just right, could be interpreted as a horsey rumble of exasperation. “So, what do you think?” I asked, suddenly shy in the silence.

Hutch flipped though the sketchbook one more time, his eyes taking in every detail. “It’s perfect,” he said at last. “Just like you.”

“Terrific,” I said with a smile, nearly splitting my face in two. “When can we get started?”

“I’ve already gotten started,” he crowed. “Been pulling down the drywall one garbage can at a time and sneaking it into the dumpsters out back after the restaurants close. You, on the other hand – once you’re released from here, of course – get to pick out paint chips and shop the storage unit where I put all your stuff from your old apartment when the lease ended. Then you can start picking out everything else we’re going to need to make this space exactly what you’ve envisioned.”

“Might take us two, three years, maybe even longer, to finish it up right,” I warned. “Disability pay doesn’t stretch nearly as far as my old paycheck.”

“So what,” Hutch said. “We’ll be cozy. Concentrate on one room at a time. Yeah, it might take us a while, but all good things are worth waiting for – right?”

Right,” I agreed, content with what we had: my slowly returning health, a home waiting for me, and the best partner, friend, and lover a man could ever hope to have. My Hutch.

A couple of weeks later, on August 28^th, nineteen seventy-nine, a miracle happened. I’ll never forget how Hutch looked that day, when he came to the rehab center with the letter.

I’d kept quiet the night before so Hutch could sleep in his chair, but I’d had a rough one. The wound in my back, the one that just wouldn’t fucking heal, had been debrided yet again. And in case you don’t know, debridement isn’t a lot of laughs. I know this from long, painful experience. At that point, I’d had so many surgeries and procedures, the doctors were afraid of getting me hooked on the heavy-duty stuff, so all they gave me were two Tylenols every six hours, which, I’ll tell you for nothing, doesn’t do jack to stop my kind of pain. I tried not to complain, though. Why? ‘Cause I wanted to get the hell out of that place, and that one wound was all that was stopping me. I’d already asked if I could go home and just have a visiting nurse come in but was told in no uncertain terms that my body wasn’t ready.

Hutch got up that morning after breakfast came in. When the orderly left, he gave me a kiss on the cheek, said he had to drop off some paperwork for Dobey, check his mail, and take a shower. So there I was, five hours later, still awake, feeling like the shit on a shingle I’d been served for lunch, when Hutch practically levitated into my room, his blond hair still wet from the shower, his face shining as bright as the sun.

“Starsk, you know that hobby room you want?”

“Yeah,” I said cautiously.

“And the library with the two couches and guest bedroom?”

“Uh-huh.” I was starting to get worried.

“We can start right away,” Hutch announced giddily.

“What? You win the lottery or something?”

“Sort of. Look at this. . . .”

Hutch had got a registered letter from the law firm of Larson, Larson, Bunderson, and Ege. It seems that Kenneth Andrew Hutchinson, Hutch’s grandfather, had put the income from the family farm in an investment account, to be held in trust for his only grandson until his 35^th birthday. About an hour west of St. Paul, just east of the town of Hutchinson, was the family land, over 20,000 acres of it. Hutch’s new income came from the rent generated by that parcel of land, which was still being farmed, only now by the family next door. The farmhouse had been leased and converted into a bed and breakfast inn and a fancy wedding venue, and the income from that had been set aside for his sister, which she would inherit in a couple of years, at age 35, like Hutch was now.

The trust papers were incomprehensible lawyer-ese to me, but the letter from Lars, Lars, Bungie, and Edge was perfectly understandable.

“Geez,” I whispered almost reverently, holding the paper tight, as if it were a bird that could fly away with our fortunes. “The interest alone is almost forty thou a year – almost twice what you make as a cop.”

“I know, right?” Hutch’s face was a kaleidoscope of expressions: shock, awe, and excitement.

‘Hutch, I-I’ll support whatever decision you make, but—”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I didn’t want to be a cop without you, anyway. At the end there, I barely wanted to be a cop with you. When I go into the office, I’ll give Dobey my two weeks’ notice.”

“What are we gonna do every day, besides sleep ’til ten, then make out for the rest of the morning?”

“After we fix up Venice Place?” Hutch liked answering a question with another question.

“Yeah. After that.”

“Well, you’ll be in your hobby room doing whatever it is that dudes do in a hobby room.”

“And when you’re done watering all your plants?”

“I kind of thought I might like to try my hand at writing a book . . . about what happened. But, you know, as a work of f-fiction, n-not an autobiography,” Hutch stammered.

“Damned right it won’t be an autobiography,” I agreed. “That would bring every nutjob in SoCal to our doorstep. But turning our cockamamie story into a science fiction adventure? That’ll be fantastic!” I said with conviction, wanting to show him I didn’t think being a writer was a crazy idea.

“And when you finish your novel,” I continued, loving the way his face was glowing, “what then?”

Hutch bent, brushed his lips against mine, and whispered, “I don’t know. Let’s find out together.”

Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson
Bay City California
Tuesday, March 25, 1980, A.D.

It’s still pretty early, but Starsk initially woke me at the crack of dawn. Why? Because it’s my crazy besotted lover’s birthday, which is always a combination of kids’ party and adult entertainment. The kids’ party-open house already happened this past Saturday, when we invited everyone we care about to come see our new space, which is finally finished, and to celebrate Starsky’s thirty-sixth birthday:

Kiko and Pete loved the guest room and plan on staying overnight often.

Mrs. Walters, Dr. Sammie, and Jackson, Jr. stopped in briefly on their way to a church fundraiser. Starsky and I made Mrs. Walters take a donation to give on our behalf. We found out Jackson graduated from high school and is attending community college until he’s old enough to apply to the Bay City Mass Transit Authority. Sammie thinks he should finish his degree, but Jackson says nothing beats a city job. He’s still young – he has to be at least twenty-one to apply – so Sammie may get her way. We’ll see.

Then there was the entire Dobey clan, who came early and stayed late. I think Cal would have been bored if he hadn’t brought his girlfriend, Tamisha, but he did and she’s really hip, big into art, so she and Cal spent a lot of time hanging out in Starsky’s hobby room – though I doubt they spent all that time peeking at Starsky’s art supplies. Rosie loved the idea of a dance space, especially since she’s recently enrolled in a jazz dance class, and she entertained us all by demonstrating everything she’s learned since joining.

Lisa and Mitzi arrived around noon and stayed for several hours, which was nice because Lisa was a big help when the kids from Terry’s last class at the Marshal Center for Exceptional Children arrived. It’s amazing how much Terry’s kids have grown. Starsky and I had already planned an activity for them – we’d blown up a hundred balloons and put a quarter in each one and hid them all around the apartment, like giant Easter eggs. Then we turned the kids loose on them. It was amazing fun watching the higher-functioning kids find balloons and pop them. Some stomped on the balloons, some sat on them, and one enterprising young fellow asked for a fork he could use to pop them. A couple of the kids were having a hard time finding balloons, and Lisa made a point of guiding them to unclaimed specimens. One child didn’t want to pop her balloon, and that was okay, too. And here’s an added bonus: the teacher who took over Terry’s position asked Mitzi and Lisa if she’d be interested in working part-time at the center as a teacher’s aide to the younger children, which thrilled Lisa.

And, of course, the usual suspects from work dropped in and out – Minnie, Babcock, and Simmons being the three who stuck around the longest.

Last, and certainly not least, was Huggy, who not only catered the event, using the new van he’d purchased for just such occasions, but he was also our impromptu DJ, making sure my hi-fi was continually spinning.

It was dark before we said goodbye to the Dobeys, the last guests to leave. A good time was had by all.

But that was Saturday. Today is Tuesday, Starsk’s actual birthday. So, because this is Starsky, we must celebrate again. I don’t mind. Whatever makes him happy. Especially since he wanted to start his day early by giving me a blow job. Now that’s a birthday activity I can get behind. But since he woke me at the crap of dawn, and I was so relaxed in the aftermath, I went back to sleep for a few hours. For that matter, I think Starsky did, too, since he’s unconscious next to me. We’re both still naked from our earlier escapades, since I crashed immediately after and – like the mischievous toddler he can sometimes be, as I can barely keep Starsky in clothes most days (I swear he really does have a nudist’s streak in him) – he didn’t bother to put his pajama pants back on.

Naked is good, I think. The perfect way to start the day, for the second time.

I pull back the covers, intending to massage Starsky’s back by way of a wake-up call, but instead I take a moment just to look. Two of the bullet wounds have back-filled with granular tissue, as the doctors call it, leaving two raised, silver dollar–sized mounds of dark purplish-pink flesh. They say that, in time, the scars will turn white – but we’re a long way from that day. The top-most bullet wound has a divot deep enough to hold the first joint of my index finger. That was the wound that took the longest to close.

These aren’t the only marks on his body. His chest has three nickel-sized scars where the bullets entered, as well as the incisions from follow-up surgeries. They’re also dark pink and still fresh enough to see where the sutures used to be. But I don’t really care. You know why? Because you have to be alive to scar and I’m so very grateful that my Starsky is still alive – scars and all.

It just about killed me, about a month ago, when we’d just finished making love and Starsky said, “Hutch, when I’m doing you, why are you always on your knees, face-down in the pillows? Is it so you won’t have to look at my scars?” It sounds corny now, but at the time I really felt like my heart would break.

“No way,” I’d said, rolling over and taking him in my arms. “I just love how it feels when you thrust so deep into me, like a wildman. You ring my bell, every time.”

“Thanks, Anita Ward,” he’d answered with a mock grimace, because I could tell he was secretly pleased with my answer. “That tune will be ringing in my brain for the rest of the afternoon.”

But that little incident made me realize I’d avoided touching his scars, but not because they turned me off. For so long I’d had to be careful with him. Now I made a point of making love to his entire body, even the damaged bits. Of course, Starsky said he’d lost a lot of feeling where the scars had formed, but I still wanted him to know all of him was worthy of love.

Ready for round two, I roll over and open my nightstand drawer, removing the bottle of massage oil and the tube of Surgi-Lube.

“Happy birthday, Gordo,” I say, straddling Starsky’s hips and bending to kiss the back of his neck. “You ready for a little massage action?”

“Do you have to ask?” he mutters into the pillows.

Having gotten the go sign, I carefully rest my weight on his fine ass. Then I open the massage oil – sandalwood, of course – and warm it in my hands before applying it to his equally fine shoulders. I get right to work, knowing exactly where all the knots live on this well-mapped expanse of flesh.

“Mmmm,” Starsky hummed happily. “Right there, Hutch. That’s the spot.”

I massage him for maybe another ten minutes, then softly I ask, “Hey. Have you gone back to sleep?”

“Nope.” His reply is a happy rumble.

“I was thinking. . . . ”

“Yeah? News flash. Let me alert the media,” Starsky teases.

I gently wap him on the back of his head.

“You trying to start something, Hutchinson?”

“As a matter of fact, I am trying to start something.”

“What ’cha got in mind?” he asks. “Maybe I can give you a hand.”

I bend and whisper something filthy in his ear, which is met by an equally filthy chuckle.

“My! Aren’t we feeling frisky this morning!”

“Well, it is your birthday, after all,” I say. “I figured you deserve a special treat.”

Starsky’s left hand comes up and taps my ass, signaling me to get up. “No, not all the way,” says Starsky. “Just enough for me to roll over. I wanna look at you.”

I oblige, raising myself up so that Starsky can maneuver. He flops onto his back and I gently reseat myself. “Okay,” I say. “You can see me. Now what?”

“I’ve been thinking,” says Starsky.

“You’ll notice that I don’t mock you for using your mind.”

“Mock-shmock. I was just playing.”

“I have the distinct impression that, given it’s your birthday, you’d probably like to play something else – am I right?”

“Yeah,” he says. Then he goes silent. After a couple of minutes and a few rolls of my hand to encourage him to finish the thought, he continues. “I’ve been thinking what it would be like to ride that horse cock of yours.”

“Wow. That’s a big subject.” And I’m not teasing. Starsky’s never breathed a word about me penetrating him before. I figured it was off the table. But, if he ever wanted to try, I likewise figured he’d let me know. I guess this is him letting me know.

“Been thinking about it for a while. Think I’m finally ready, you know?”

“That sounds more like a birthday gift for me,” I say.

“Not necessarily.”

I see his entire face turn a deep pink, and not in slow motion. Damn. It takes a lot to make Starsky blush.

“Only if you’re sure,” I tell him.

“I think I’m sure,” he says, looking abashed. “But if I change my mind midway—”

“—No harm, no foul,” I interject quickly.

“Yeah,” he says. “I like that. No harm, no foul.”

Dave Starsky
A Moment Later

Now it’s my turn to give Hutch the “hurry up” hands as he continues to sit on my pelvis, pinning me to the bed, looking kinda dazed and happy. “Earth to Hutch,” I call to the tall, blond goof on top of me. He looks my way with a grin on his face.

“Yeah?”

“It’s gonna be kinda hard for me to ride you in this position,” I remind him.

“Oh! Yeah,” he says, rolling off at last. He comes to rest beside me. I reach down and thread my fingers with his. Then I pull our tangled hands up and brush my lips across his knuckles, like I’m sealing a vow with a kiss. Hutch’s eyes always brighten when I do this, like he knows my secret, though we’ve never talked about it. Who knows? Maybe he does. We’ve always had this unspoken telepathic thing between us.

He unlaces our fingers and brings his palm up to cup my cheek, his thumb brushing softly across my lips.

I like when he does this – his thumb leaves behind a tingly feeling that always makes me wake up and pay attention. For a full minute, Hutch’s hand caresses my face, then his fingers abruptly sink into my curls, latching on tight, but not painfully so, blurring the line between what was comfort and ramping it up into hunger. This is his patented “I’m ready to rumble” maneuver. I like to play a game I call “can I slow him down?”

With that goal in mind, I gotta few maneuvers of my own: I start by trailing my fingertips up and down Hutch’s ribcage, leaving goosebumps and a shiver in their wake. “You felt that,” I murmur, giving a small grin of triumph.

“Yeah,” he says breathily. “I felt that.”

Hutch’s hand lets go of my hair and drifts lower, cupping the nape of my neck, gentler now. He pulls me into a kiss that slowly, oh so slowly deepens into something breathless and unspoken. His kiss promises shelter and passion, and that’s what I love best about us. The caring has always come easy between me and him. The passion – not just fucking but actual lovemaking – well, that took longer. But now that we got it, ain’t neither of us turning back. With every shared breath I feel myself growing harder.

It’s my turn to put the moves on, so I hook my arm around Hutch’s shoulders and drag him closer. Our bodies mold together, a perfect fit, his chest toned and nearly hairless, the exact opposite of my furry, more battered one. But he loves beat-up stuff, as anyone who’s ever seen his succession of Bondo-mobiles knows, so I don’t worry about it. Not since we talked it out. Besides, I got better things to think about right now. I’m deep in the embrace of the man I love, totally submerged in our private world of two. Only our private world gets a little more crowded when our cocks decide they’ve been patient long enough. Hutch slots his next to mine and rolls his hips, rubbing us together.

“Mmm,” I groan, the sound coming from deep in my throat, maybe deep as my heart. “That feels good. Do it again, babe.”

“I’ll do something better,” he whispers.

A grip that trembles with restrained urgency loosely encloses my cock. He strokes me, gentle due to the lack of lube, and Hutch was right – this is so much better. I take a page from his book and roll my hips, working in time with his strokes. Soon, I want more. “Get the stuff, Hutch.”

“It’s already here in the bed,” he says. “Give me a minute. . . . ” I hear him patting the mattress down, searching through the sheets, until his cry of “ah!” tells me he’s found the lube. He holds it steady between us and, unasked, I unscrew the top, then throw it over Hutch’s shoulder in the direction of the still-open nightstand drawer. I grin when it lands just where I’d aimed it. Two points for Dave Starsky!

When Hutch asks for a hand, instead of applauding (which I’d do if I weren’t so damned horny), I take the tube and squirt a generous glob onto his palm. “Thanks,” he says, punctuating it with a peck on my neck. Awkwardly, I reach over my head and just manage to put the uncapped tube o’ lube on the edge of my nightstand.

This time, Hutch grasps both our cocks, spreading the lube around and making everything slick and sweet as he starts stroking us in earnest. We both sigh and moan. When the moment feels right, when we’re both hard enough to hammer nails, as the old saying goes, I place my hand on top of his and slowly shift gears down, until we’re all the way in neutral.

“What’s up?” Hutch manages to chuff out, his eyes blown, totally ready to take us across the finish line.

“It’s my birthday,” I remind him, “and I want something special.”

“You still want to—?” He makes this bizarre gesture in the air that – God help me – I somehow know is his imitation of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco.

“Yeah, I still want to.”

Ever obliging, Hutch rolls onto his back.

“Move to the center of the bed,” I boss him. “Don’t want to fall off the edge at the wrong moment.”

“Can do.” Hutch scooches to the middle of the mattress, his dripping, glistening cock tapping his flat belly impatiently.

“And we’re gonna need waaaaay more lube,” I say, already reaching for the tube. “This is going to get messy.” But no one here cares. I start at the tip and work my way down his shaft, leaving behind a fat trail of Surgi-Lube.

“You think you got enough there, Gordo?”

“Have you looked at this thing in the mirror lately?” I sass back, tossing the mostly empty tube back onto my nightstand. “And, unlike you, this is my first rodeo.”

Hutch’s clean hand snags mine. He pulls it towards his lips, giving my knuckles both a nip and a kiss. “You don’t have to do this. You know that, right?”

“I want to,” I say. “I think . . . I think it would mean a lot . . . to both of us.”

“I think so, too.” He squeezes my hand, sending comfort through his touch, before letting go. “How can I help?”

“You can be patient.”

“You got it.”

“And it would be a big help if you could, you know,” I pause a moment, picturing how I want to make this work. “If you could reach between my legs and hold your cock steady for me, I think it would be a lot easier for me to, you know, hit the target.”

“Won’t my wrist and hand . . . get in the way?”

He’s gonna make me say it. I feel a flush rise in my cheeks but I brazen it out, having gotten this far. “Look. Once I get it in and feel like I got a handle on things, I’ll ask you to let go. Just don’t rack my nuts on the way out, okay? That would be a real boner killer.”

“Got it,” says Hutch, his face serious. “No nut racking. No boner killer.”

I pantomime straddling him, and Hutch nods eagerly.

I sit up, reverse my position on the bed ’til I’m sitting on my heels beside Hutch, facing him. I give him a nod and swing my left leg up and over his hips. I don’t bother to rest my weight on him – what I want to do requires that I kneel up. “Okay, Hutch. Reach between my legs and grab your cock.”

Very carefully, he slides his hand along his belly, going as low as he can go as he snakes first his fingers, then his hand and wrist, behind my balls. My nutsack is resting exactly were his cheap watch would be if he were wearing it in bed.

“Sit down a bit, Starsk. Get a feel for the lay of the land.”

I do as Hutch says and rest most of my weight on his pelvis. It feels oddly intimate to have his arm pressed into my balls, his knuckles grazing no man’s land. But I can feel Hutch’s cock nestled in my ass crack. He’s right: I have a much better idea of the angle and location now. It’s just a matter of me lifting and centering my hole on the head of his shaft. It takes a few tries, but that’s okay – I figure the lube needs to get spread around back there anyway. Pretty soon, though, I get down to the serious business of finding his cockhead, very sure about where I want to put it.

“Bullseye,” I say, at last. “Hold it right there, okay? And don’t move.”

“Easier said than done, babe,” Hutch says, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead, his eyes dilated so wide that all I can see is a tiny ring of sky blue surrounding the pupils. The sight makes my heart leap in my chest. I did that. I got under that Hutchinson cool. Turned him into a puddle of want. Me.

“Need a minute to calm down.” Hutch closes his eyes as if the mere sight of me is enough to cause him to lose it. “Don’t want the show to be over before it’s barely started.”

“Yeah . . . take all the time you need.”

I watch Hutch tremble with emotion and desire. Been there plenty, myself, so I know what it’s like. Where you feel like one wrong move – or should that be one right move? – and you’re going to pop off. Hutch’s right hand continues to steady his cock, keeping it on target, but the left one lets go of the covers and comes up to grip my thigh, tight enough for me to really feel it, but not so tight that it’s gonna bruise. Not that I would care. Sometimes we get so “no holds barred” in bed that we both come up scratched and bruised, grinning like loons at the colors that blossom on our bodies, not giving a damn that we look like we’ve been in a back-alley brawl. Yeah, I think some of the Mirror Universe rubbed off on my golden guy, just enough to keep it spicy in the bedroom. But this morning? Slow and steady will win the race. I wasn’t exaggerating when I call that thing of his a horse cock. It’s gonna take everything I’ve learned in bed these last few months to figure this out without fucking it up.

In an effort to distract Hutch, I use my fingertips to skim his chest, a slow exploration meant to calm and soothe. I keep it up until his rapid breathing slows to something a little less intense. At last, the grip on my thigh eases and he opens his eyes, looking calmer.

“I’m good,” he says.

“You’re better than good. You are so fine, oh lover of mine.”

Hutch smiles up at me, so goddamned gorgeous that a part of me just wants to die, this moment so perfect, but I know it’s going to get so much better. The head of Hutch’s cock is still skimming my hole. That’s how still I’ve kept. But now I’m ready to start moving and take him inside me. I push down, but his cock slides away, painting a trail of lube between my cheeks.

“You got one job, Secretariat,” I chide without rancor. “Pay attention and hold that thing of yours in place.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Hutch says, an ironic grin on his lips. It’s not the kind of thing he normally says, and I sense there’s a story here, but it’s going to have to wait. My body is hungry for him. I want him in me, want to make him all mine.

Hutch recenters himself, and I sit ever so slightly back, my thighs beginning to burn somewhat from having knelt up so long. At first, my body resists. It opens up slightly, then clamps down tight again. This goes on for a while, ’til I get impatient. I know what I want, even if my body doesn’t. Exasperated, I sit back hard.

I feel the head of Hutch’s shaft push through the tight ring of muscle that’s my anus, feel it blocking me open, feel the burn as the flared edge pops into my body. Suddenly, I can’t breathe. Rippling pain! My ass is actively working to push Hutch out, but I’m not going to give up, not when I’ve got this far.

Hutch gives a groan of pure pleasure and I understand why. That ring of muscle dancing around the head of your cock is unlike any other feeling on planet Earth. I try to wait out the hurt, give my body a chance to relax. Adjust. “You’re in deep enough that I’m not going to lose you,” I pant. “Go ahead and pull your hand out of the way.”

“You sure?”

I don’t bother to answer. I just push down another two inches. The lube is helping, definitely, but my body is also adjusting, slowly accepting the rigid column of flesh piercing it. It still hurts, almost like a deep cramp, but nothing near what it felt like even a few moments ago.

True to his word, Hutch doesn’t emasculate me when he withdraws his hand.

But my legs have had enough, and I slide down Hutch’s cock another inch, the pain ratcheting up to a level I didn’t expect. I must’ve expressed my discomfort louder than I thought because the next thing I know, Hutch’s big mitts cinch my waist, his fingertips digging deep into my glutes, his thumbs right under the slab of muscle at the base of my belly. He’s holding me upright, arresting my slide down that thick prick of his, the thing feeling like it’s splitting me in two. Additionally, Hutch folds his legs, allowing my ass to rest on his thighs, giving me something to perch on while I think my way through this agony.

“Let’s try again another time,” Hutch says, his voice gentle but firm.

I press my palms into his chest, counterbalancing myself. I’m trembling, not just from pain but from pride, too. I’ve made it this far, farther than I ever imagined, and I want all of Hutch in me.

“I’m not ready to give up,” I say. “You said . . . you’d . . . be patient.”

“That’s when I thought you’d be having a good time,” he clarifies. Still supporting most of my weight, he points to my now-flaccid cock with his chin. “You’re not having a good time, wildman. Time to live to fight another day.”

“I’m doing this and you’re gonna help me. Just let me breathe a minute.”

Hutch’s expression is dubious yet hopeful. My dick isn’t having a good time at the moment, but his sure is. I can feel it throbbing within me, each micro-movement of his hips, his thighs, telegraphed into my body. I take two deep breaths, and I can feel the muscles in my lower back and my ass relax, feel that relaxation translate to my opening, which is stuffed full of Hutch. He must feel something, too, because he says, “Is that a little better?”

“Yeah,” I say on the exhale, feeling my body start to release its strangle hold on Hutch’s cock. “I feel like I can move again.”

Whenever I’d imagined doing this, I thought I’d move up and down his shaft, slowly make room inside myself to take all of him, a little at a time. Yeah. That’s not happening. Time for Plan B. “Slowly lower your legs, Blintz.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“You know, this is gonna take all day if you’re gonna question everything I say.”

Hutch raises his hands in the “just asking – don’t shoot me” pose.

Slowly, he lowers his legs. Just as slowly, he lowers me onto his cock. I’ve still got my hands on his chest for balance, but it’s Hutch who’s driving the bus right now. I just had no idea what being filled to bursting with another man’s cock – Hutch’s cock – would feel like, and this sensation of being taken, yet held, giving and receiving . . . it’s almost too much to bear, an intimacy I’d never imagined applying to me, to my life. But now that I feel Hutch deep inside me, I know this is where he belongs, where I belong, both of us joined together.

At last, Hutch’s legs are stretched flat on the mattress and I’m fully seated on his lap. I’m panting, sweating, pretty wrecked by feelings deep in my body, feelings deep in my heart, feelings that I didn’t know existed before this morning. I just sit here, trying to breathe normally, trying to reconcile how lucky I am to be alive, that I get to have this, all of Hutch’s love, all of him, body and soul. Finally, I feel like I can move, give back some of the love Hutch is giving me. I start to lift my body off the thick rod that’s piercing me when Hutch’s hand closes around my soft cock.

“Let me give you a hand, partner,” he says.

It’s slow going at first, but Hutch is patient and skilled. Before too long, I’ve firmed up nicely, and what felt amazing with a limp dick is truly transcendental with a hard one. Now that all the players are on the field, Hutch’s hands explore my chest, my arms, my thighs. My skin tingles wherever his touch lingers too long, his fingertips leaving a line of thrilling fire in their wake. While I’m touching him back, running my fingers over that silky pale body, memorizing each curve of muscle, he tweaks my nipples out of the blue, causing me to bear down. Oh, damn, it feels so fucking good! Now I get why Hutch likes it when I’m doing him.

Hutch gives a strangled cry and returns his hands to my hips, his grip tight. Only this time, instead of holding me up, he’s pulling me down, fully onto his cock. Pushing it in that last little bit. Closing any gap, however tiny, between us.

I close my eyes and see stars. We’re so tightly joined that I don’t know where I begin and Hutch ends. I’m shivering – not with pain or cold, but desire. Hutch’s strong hands pull me onto him once again, and I realize this is more than just fucking. This is love, the whole ball o’ wax, as he strains to enter me fully. And I want to give him just as much as he’s giving me. Using my overworked thighs, I lift my ass off Hutch’s shaft, just a smidge, only to be met with a wild groan erupting from that long, lovely throat of his. He pulls me down once more, and I feel that massive organ of his taking the room it needs inside of me. With another shiver, I rise up, nearly halfway off his cock, and I squeeze my ass tight and shove down as fast as I can.

Now I’m the one who’s groaning. My hole still hurts, but it’s tolerable, like when you go to the gym and work out a new muscle group for the first time. You know that practice will put paid to the soreness, and I’m looking forward to practicing fucking often with my lover, my best friend, closer than a brother, my everything.

Hutch lets go of my hips and his arms stretch outward, grabbing the edge of the mattress.

“Don’t let go,” I pant out.

“Got to,” Hutch gasps. “I’m going to hurt you if I don’t.”

“You’d . . . you’d . . . never hurt me,” I grind out, even as I’m grinding my body onto Hutch’s cock, grateful for all the lube I used. Finally, I’m fully riding him, breathless and ravenous, chasing my orgasm. He’s pounding up into me with everything he’s got, his hips writhing beneath me.

The heat between us rises. I watch – hypnotized – as a drop of my sweat falls onto Hutch’s chest. His temples are damp, his bangs are stuck to his forehead, so one more drop of sweat isn’t going to make a difference. I’m really pounding him now, taking everything he’s got to give and then some.

“Starsk!”

It’s the only warning I get. The only warning I need. The way his face is contorting, the way his entire body is shaking, the way those unmistakable sounds are pouring outta him, tell me that Hutch is coming. It only takes two more thrusts before I’m joining him. Despite this being the best orgasm ever, or maybe because of it, I have a moment of perfect clarity. I realize that, for me and Hutch, possession and devotion are one and the same. Pretty profound for a guy who just had his brains fucked out, huh? I only hope I remember to tell him later, after we’ve both recovered from the most profound moment of love two people could ever experience.

But I’m pretty sure I’ll remember. Some things aren’t meant to be forgotten.

Like perfect love.

Like the perfect man.

My Hutch.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls.
The most massive characters are seared with scars.
~Khalil Gabron

---

 

---

OMNI: An Exclusive Excerpt from the New Novel Agora of Time by D. B. Mears

The Secret Diary of Iacobi Mariscalus Bellator

My private jet has carried me to my homebase in San Francisco. My doppelganger’s taste in décor is adequate: dark wood and marble. It could be bettered by frescoes. But I have more important tasks than art to address. I have interviewed three attorneys. The first two were corporate hacks. The third, though, he intrigues me. Bates. That is his name. I was unfamiliar with the moniker until I looked it up in the dictionary. It means “to reduce the force.”

He is smart. Experienced. Been second chair for fifteen years for a rotten corporation that has undergone a hostile takeover. He is ready to take the first chair. I asked him if he had the stones to get rich beyond his wildest imaginings. He replied that he had a rich imagination. So trite. Nevertheless, I smiled. I asked if he thought he were ready to enter the arena. Winner takes all. Loser dies ignominiously. Bates hesitated. I could guess what little inner wisdom he possessed was telling him to get up and run, not walk, away from me. But he stayed. More fool him.

Bates’ first assignment is to find me an appropriate accountant. When I said we needed a Babylonian, he looked at me blankly. “Allow me to speak more plainly,” I said. “I need someone capable of hiding hundreds of millions of dollars and making it all look legal on the tax forms. Do you understand me now?” I could see Bates mentally upping his retainer. No bother. He could have asked for triple. I want to buy the man, not rent him.

I urged Bates to find the accountant cito. At his quizzical look, I deigned to translate. “Quickly, Bates. Find an appropriate accountant quickly.”

Bates took this as his cue to exit. Then I called out to him before he could open the door. “One more thing, Bates. I will need a short list of soldiers of fortune. I am looking to expand my personal protection, if you follow my meaning.”

“You want to hire a-a mercenary?” Bates stuttered.

“Yes. But I think ‘soldier of fortune’ is so much more civilized a term, do you not agree?”

“Yes, sir.”

Biddable Bates. Just the attorney I have been looking for.

Written by my own hand, this sixteenth day of November, Nineteen-hundred and Seventy-seven, as numbered on this barbarous world, San Francisco, the State of California

*~*G~*~

Bates is working out better than could be realistically hoped. A criminal organization belonging to a crime lord named Amboy was taken down in Bay City last month. One of his lesser lieutenants (not caught in the police sweep) has assumed the prostitution end of his business. But the drugs! Several petty gangs are battling for the territory, but the fools have yet to secure the supplier. Bates “knows someone who knows someone in Las Vegas” and he has set a meeting with this supplier. Once I acquire this new source of product, I can easily double my profits. But I must bring these Bay City neighborhood gangs to heel and for that I need an enforcer.

I am flying to Las Vegas with the money Bates needs to close the deal with our newest supplier. It is a significant sum and, let me say, I do not entirely trust him to obey completely. Yet. Thus, my attendance. I will feel more confident of his loyalty given time and an appropriate enforcer on staff, one fearsome enough to inspire allegiance or, at the very least, adherence to my will. Which brings me to my next order of business.

Bates feels he has identified a soldier of fortune that may suit my needs. He is based in Reno, so that will be our second stop before returning to San Francisco – I cannot yet call it home. I am looking forward to meeting this man who, appropriately enough for my purposes, calls himself “Soldier.” Of course, Bates has compiled a dossier for me. Soldier’s nom de plume has Interpol warrants across Europe, but he is unknown here in the New World Provinces United States.

The Gods, if I believed in them, approve of my actions. I asked for a soldier and now I am getting one. And a formidable beast is he, if his European antics are to be believed. Murder for hire, kidnapping, arson, terrorism of the explosive kind. An all-round anarchist. But like all of us, he is not getting any younger. I would not be surprised if, while he is lying low in the States until the heat in Europe cools off, he was looking for a fat, easy job to tide him over. Enforcer for an old man dealing in drugs might suit such a fellow just fine. Certainly, that is the bill of goods I will sell to him.

Written by my own hand, this twenty-third day of November, Nineteen-hundred and Seventy-seven, as numbered on this barbarous world, San Francisco, The State of California

*~*G~*~

Good news! Soldier is on my payroll, and he has already solved my Bay City distribution issue. An associate of his by the name of Frost lives in Bay City and will take point and sell my product directly to the gangs. This places three cutaways between me and the crime. If the police get too fresh on the trail, Frost, Soldier, or Bates can have a convenient “accident” and thus are all direct ties to me cut.

Now that Bay City is sorted out, I have put Soldier to finding me an apothecary. “You need a chemist?” Soldier asked, a thoughtful look kinking his thuggish features. “You wanting to start cooking your own speed, sir?”

“Nothing so tawdry,” I answered. On my desk I had a manila envelope. You can be sure the packet was devoid of fingerprints. My training taught me to be very careful about such things. “I need certain powders and elixirs for my own health and safety. You will need to locate a good chemist, a highly trained individual, not some. . . . ” I struggled a moment to find the correct colloquialism. “Not some hillbilly one step up from brewing bathtub gin.” I pushed the envelope towards Soldier with my pen. “The compounds I need are listed within – all the necessary components in appropriate proportions. Let us start with twenty-five doses of each.”

“Whatever you say, Boss. I got a guy that I think would want the work. But it’ll take a little time, especially if any of these ingredients are controlled substances.”

“I expect delivery within thirty days. I will pay a premium for such alacrity.” Soldier nods and stands to leave, but before he exits, I provide a warning. “Tell your ‘guy’ that I will know if he has altered the formulas. If I determine there has been any deviation, you will find it necessary to pay him a final visit.”

“I understand,” says Soldier.

“I’m sure you do.”

Written by my own hand, this second day of December, Nineteen-hundred and Seventy-seven, as numbered on this barbarous world, San Francisco, the State of California

*~*G~*~

Bates has contacts with some less-than-sterling judges up and down coastal California, and these judges have some less-than-sterling friends. Of course, I tell Bates, we must support their favorite charities, all such donations to be made in person and in cash. I leave the details to Bates.

Given the newness of our Bay City operation, Soldier has been spending most of his time there, making an impression on our dealers that quotas must be met. Additionally, he has picked up the scent of rot in the city, just a whiff. The street fears something called “The Committee” is executing drug dealers, murderers, rapists. Only those with lengthy records, so I urged Soldier to tell his contacts to recruit young new dealers, those with clean records, to move product until this Committee can be properly dealt with.

Soldier blames the killings on rival gang members settling old scores during this time of upset and transition. I smell something more organized. Something that hates career criminals. I suspect the Bay City Police Department has a vigilante crew on its payroll. I cannot make use of such men, because they imagine themselves judge, jury, and executioner. This is a “Holy” cause for them and therefore sanctioned by some higher morality than their oaths to serve and protect. I need a more subtle police presence on my payroll. Quiet. Observant. Officers that act on my initiative, not their own.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to read the newspapers and parse out the antics of this Committee from a distance. I wonder when they will be taken down and by whom.

Written by my own hand, this Ninth day of December, Nineteen-hundred and Seventy-seven, as numbered on this barbarous world, San Francisco, the State of California

*~*G~*~

After careful consideration and serious research, I have asked Bates to arrange a little “New Year’s Eve” party here at the house for the vice presidents of five of my corporations:

• -Mr. Lancaster, London – Steel Production and Shipping
• -Mr. Synder, Johannesburg – Precious Metals and Diamonds
• -Mr. Jenson, New York – Federated Charities (a prime source of money laundering)
• -Ms. Adams, Toronto – Fast Fashion
• -Mr. Jimenez – Agricultural Products

I plan to meet with them individually and offer them the means and the motive to remove their immediate superiors in exchange for vastly increased financial compensation and personal autonomy. It will be up to the individual to create an expeditious opportunity.

Should any refuse my offer, which I do not anticipate – given they have already committed nearly every crime except murder to climb the corporate ladder so high – Soldier will be on hand to send them quietly to the Elysian Fields. San Francisco is becoming such a dangerous city! In this manner, I assure their interests align with mine. It was so much easier to have a candid board meeting when all the players are on the same side. After all, what is a little assassination amongst friends?

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Written by my own hand, this sixteenth day of December, Nineteen-hundred and Seventy-seven, as numbered on this barbarous world, San Francisco, the State of California

*~*G~*~

This last day of Saturnalia saw the delivery of the only gift I wanted this year: Soldier’s alchemist has come through with the products I requested. Well, perhaps not the only gift. My list of friendly judges, politicians, and police officers grows like weeds, from Las Vegas in the East, north as far as Portland, and south to San Diego.

All my plans proceed apace, except for Bay City. This odious metropolis has an unusually effective police force. Greater efforts must be made to place some of these officers on my payroll. This is not a job for Soldier; he looks like the thug he is. I will put Bates on the task. Tell him to start with women, minorities, and fresh graduates from the Academy, those who have the most to gain from an extra paycheck. Nothing too insidious; at least, not at first. Just office gossip. The disgruntled. Officers willing to look the other way in exchange for a gratuity. And, yes, a list of officers who can be neither rented nor bought.

Tomorrow, I will send Bates to Bay City on my private jet with a suitcase full of cash. Tell him not to bother coming back until he has at least five officers on retainer. And while he is there, he can scout for some good investment property. I need to spread my drug money around – not concentrate too much wealth in any one area.

POSTSCRIPT: The Bay City newspapers reported a death in the line of duty of a highly decorated police captain, a certain Michael Ferguson. It seems odd to me that a man of his station and years would be gunned down in the street. I also find it quite curious that a few days later Matt Coyle, a renowned gangster, was arrested. Is there a connection? I have my suspicions. But more importantly, Coyle’s empire is up for grabs. And I intend to seize as much as I possibly can.

Also worth noting are the arresting officers: Detectives Ken Hutchinson and Dave Starsky. My gut tells me they bear watching. I will add their names to the cuttings service Bates has set up for me. Any time they are mentioned in the press or on television, I’ll get notification of their exploits.

Written by my own hand, this twenty-third day of December, Nineteen-hundred and Seventy-seven, as numbered on this barbarous world, San Francisco, the State of California

*~*G~*~

Good news: today I am flying to Bay City to conduct some business personally. I need legitimate real estate deals in which to invest so that I may hide my illicit gains. Bates has identified an elderly man with an extensive portfolio of buildings in the heart of Bay City – nearly an entire city block, purchased a building here, a building there, over the course of fifty years. There are several apartment complexes and a few small businesses he rents to, such as family-run grocery stores, a flower shop, dry cleaners, and a bar by the name of “The Pits.” I will be meeting Amos Hambly, along with his eager young nephew Earnest, at The Pits to conclude the deal. It is not the location I would have selected for the transaction; it was Hambly who chose this place. Nevertheless, I am happy to give him the impression he has the home-turf advantage.

What Mister Hambly does not realize is that his nephew and heir is eager to sell at any price.

How fortunate that my three greatest allies will be at my side: The first is simple strychnine hydrochloride, in a dose most appropriate for a human-sized rat. I use this when it does not matter if the murder is openly investigated. It sends a message, typically to the little people who sell drugs at the street level, that I kill with impunity. It is a swift and ugly death. My second ally is one I call the sleeper. It is a commonly prescribed sleep aid laced with uncut heroin. You go to sleep and die with the speed of a freight train, leaving behind false clues for the police to investigate ad nauseum. My closest ally I call Hadrian, after the Emperor who died of heart failure. It is in liquid form and administered in food or drink, preferably a hot beverage. Depending on the health of the individual, it can take twenty minutes to two hours to induce a perfectly natural looking “heart attack.” One way or another, I will soon own a sizable slice of Bay City.

Lastly: Bates has reached his allotment of newly acquired Bay City Police employees. I look forward to learning more about these people when I next meet with him in person. Having eyes and ears within the department will make a huge difference in my advance planning.

Written by my own hand, this third day of January, Nineteen-hundred and Seventy-eight, as numbered on this barbarous world, San Francisco, the State of California

*~*G~*~

Ninety days since my arrival! What a change three months has wrought. Already I am making five million a month from my cocaine business. There is no shortage of users. With the proceeds, I purchase innocuous businesses – everything from baby formula manufacturers to avocado plantations. I use multiple shell corporations registered offshore. Then I “loan” these businesses investment capital, which, of course, they are not obligated to pay. Yes, payments are made on paper, and thus my drug money is now “cleaned.”

Bates says that if we continue at our current rate of growth, across all my endeavors, we can expect to clear a quarter of a billion this year alone. That is more than fifteen thousand times the average salary one plebe makes on this world.

Ah, yes! I received an interesting telephone call today from a representative of the Republican National Convention, a Mister Andrew Hutchinson, Esquire of Duluth, Minnesota. Evidently, they want me to reconsider my doppelganger’s refusal to run for president in the upcoming 1980 election. He said, “It’s you, sir, or that actor, Ronald Reagan.”

“Be content with the actor,” I said. “I am quite happy where I am. After all, it would be a step down in power, were I to accept your offer.”

Written by my own hand, this tenth day of January, Nineteen-hundred and Seventy-eight, as numbered on this barbarous world, San Francisco, the State of California

*~*G~*~

 

Post Scriptum:
Superstes Est Maximum Donum Amoris

Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson
Province of California, Bay City
Tuesday, 31 May 1979, J.C.

Hutch watched fondly as Starsky picked up a handful of diamonds, poured them into an empty cup leftover from breakfast, rattled them briefly, then cast them on the table like dice. They didn’t have the good hard ring of bone striking wood, but it must have seemed good to his partner. Starsky laughed aloud, the sound one of pure delight. He promptly scooped the gems up and set them to rattling again. Hutch felt his lips curl up, happy. Truly happy. Of course, it had more to do with reuniting with his lover than the deep pile of bearer bonds that his hand rested upon.

“Hey, Hutch,” Starsky called from the table, his voice bright. “Listen to the different sound rubies make.” Hutch watched as Starsky turned out his pockets, his fists filled with deep crimson stones. He held his hands over the table and let the jewels fall. Some of the rubies were the size of pigeons’ eggs, and they made a much more satisfying crack than the diamonds as they struck the tabletop, bounced, then bounced again.

“Hah!” Starsky breathed out, an exhalation of exuberance if Hutch had ever heard one. “I could do this all day!”

“Go ahead,” Hutch said, indulgent. “It’ll take me all day to weigh out the gold.”

Instead of gathering up the scattered gemstones, Starsky came up behind Hutch and wrapped his arms around his waist. “What are we going to do with all this wealth? Buy an island and retire?”

“Is that what you want to do?” Hutch asked, turning in Starsky’s arms, facing him.

“Nah,” Starsky answered swiftly. “I like the work I do – especially the wet work. Nothing like having a heavy .50 cal butted up against your shoulder, lining it up to take out some scumbag a thousand yards out.”

“Would you like to do that work for me, instead of the Emperor’s team?”

Hutch watched as a slow smile crept across his Starsky’s face. “You’re gonna take the lieutenant’s exam.”

“Yes.”

“I bet you won’t be a lieutenant long,” Starsky predicted breezily, his smile getting bigger.

“Especially if a handful of rotten-to-the-core captains just happen to get mysteriously offed soon after,” Hutch answered, equally breezily.

“You stopping at captain?”

“Nope,” Hutch answered.

“Deputy chief?”

Hutch shook his head.

“Well, if you’ve made it all the way to assistant chief, you gotta go for chief of police, right?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Hutch said. “What about you, partner?”

“When I’m too old for the street, I’ll take the lieutenant’s exam,” Starsky said. “I like being a much lesser target. Besides, I’m gonna be too busy watching your back to take on extra duties.” He reached down and gave Hutch’s ass a playful slap. “So, tell me, Chief Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson, what are you going to do with the full power of the police force behind you?”

“Once you and I are done cleaning house internally?”

“Yeah.”

“First, we’re going to clean up Bay City, make it the shining jewel of the province.” Hutch paused, thought a moment. “That other world, Starsk, it wasn’t better – it was different. The people there were . . . happier. The regular folks, at least. They weren’t always afraid, like people are here. There was . . . ” Hutch struggled to find the word he was after.

“You’re talking about hope,” Starsky said, his voice firm.

“Yeah,” Hutch admitted. “I guess I am.”

“Man,” Starsky said, hugging Hutch tighter, laying his head upon Hutch’s shoulder, “it’s been a long time since I hoped for something besides surviving our shift and giving you head.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” Hutch said cautiously. He sank his fingers into Starsky’s hair and gently lifted his head off his shoulder. “You sure you don’t want to retire to that island?”

“I just want to be with you, wherever that might be,” Starsky answered resolutely. “Besides, think of the bragging rights I’ll have once everyone knows I’m banging the chief of police. Terrific, eh?” Hutch gave him a stern look, letting him know that there would be no actual bragging, but going along with it for now because he didn’t want to break the mood.

“Terrific,” Hutch agreed before he pressed his mouth to his partner’s.

Starsky broke their kiss to ask, “So, who’s my first target?”

“I’ve got a list. . . . ”

 

Postlude: Carpe Diem

David Michaèl Starsky
Province of California, Bay City
Festival of Liber and Libera
Monday, 17 March 1980, J.C.

“That was the shortest stint as lieutenant in the history of the force,” Starsky said. “And a record setter, as Kenneth Fulvius Hutchinson is now the youngest officer in the history of the UPPF ever promoted to captain. But what can you expect with so many officers dropping dead from a bad case of a bullet to the head?”

“Only the rotten ones,” Hutch answered. “None of them worth a damn. The force is better off without them. Good riddance.”

“I’m not wasting any time mourning,” Starsky added as he stretched and writhed upon the covers, looking sleek as a cat, his nude body perfect, even with the three parallel whip scars running down his back. Hutch smiled when Starsky’s neck gave an audible crack, releasing a kink caused by the old injury.

They’d celebrated their work holiday honoring Liber and Libera as they usually did: They stayed home and spent the day in bed, worshipping the fertility Gods the way all fertility Gods should be worshipped: by making love.

“This is what I want for my birthday next week,” Starsky announced.

“You never wanted to celebrate your birthday before,” Hutch said suspiciously. “Why now, all of a sudden?”

“I’ve always wanted to celebrate my birthday but thought you’d think that was too sappy. But I feel like I can trust you with that part of me – the part that likes birthdays.”

“Yeah, but why now? We’ve been partners forever.”

“Well, the other Hutch said you gotta trust somebody sooner or later,” Starsky explained.

“That’s a stupid philosophy,” Hutch answered.

“Not if that somebody is you,” Starsky murmured, bringing his lips to press against his partner’s.

Forever later, Hutch replied, “Okay. I’ll allow as how it’s okay to trust somebody else, as long as that somebody is me.”

“You wanna know how much I trust you, Hutch?”

“Sure.”

“I thought we might play the ‘no’ game,” Starsky said with a sly grin.

“We play that game all the time,” Hutch replied with a fond look.

“But this time I’ll be the one saying no.”

Hutch thought a moment, then smiled. “That sounds really great.”

“And Hutch?”

“Yeah?”

“Handcuff my hands behind my back, will you?”

“You bet I will!”