Show Time

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We learn more about what makes Starsky and Hutch tick. They learn more about each other. A lot more.

 

While most action that could be disturbing to some readers takes place off-stage in this story, traces remain and readers must be willing to notice them.

This is my first attempt at fiction, save for one little Secret Santa story (“Cards”) and a short scene I wrote in response to a longer story by Hutchrules3 (with her gracious permission).

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Pay No Attention to the Boys Behind the Badges

This is how many keypunch holes it took for the Department of the Army to generate its April 1966 letter to Kenneth Hutchinson, of Duluth, Minnesota, informing him that it wanted his ass:

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If Dave Starsky’s immediate response to a similar message pulled from his Bay City mailbox in the same year could have been transliterated, hole for letter, into the vernacular of his Brooklyn boyhood, it would have read:

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Always one to make the best of a situation even if it killed him, Starsky decided to beat the draft by enlisting for a tour of duty in Viet Nam under relatively advantageous terms. He managed to impress his fellow enlisted men and commanding officers alike, coming home a few months early with several pieces of paper attesting to this fact, along with a “VC sharpshooter medal”–known to the world as a Purple Heart–and several stories he quickly learned to keep to himself.

Hutchinson–known to his many friends since childhood as Hutch–avoided a similar fate by maintaining a 3.7 grade point average in the university of his choice. His father and the Dean of Men conspired to keep an actual degree just beyond his reach for as long as they could. When this inevitably ceased to satisfy the Saint Louis County draft board, a marriage inspired equally by infatuation and convenience did the trick.

 

Just the Facts, Ma’am

By 1974, a peculiar braiding of events had brought Starsky and Hutch to the same spot on the lower tier of a filthy parking garage at 24th and Meridian. There, they bent over either side of an upside-down, handcuffed criminal suspect they’d chased on foot for five blocks, brought down, and arrested. He had assaulted a seventy-two-year-old woman in an alley between her rented room and a nearby grocery store, apparently for her food stamps and $14.32 in cash. The old lady had died a week later from head injuries sustained in the incident, but not before positively identifying her attacker.

While Starsky caught enough breath to begin informing the criminal of his rights, Hutch flipped open his over shirt to holster a large handgun. It was one of the few things of material value he’d brought with him to the flamboyant city he and Starsky were both sworn to “protect and serve.”

To those who followed Bay City police activities with sympathetic interest in spite of Flower Power, the Watts riots, and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, they were probably the best team of law enforcement officers the city had ever produced. They certainly fed the media’s hunger for a good show. An aspiring scriptwriter had paid her rent for one more week by ballyhooing them in some local periodical as “detectives of a new fashion who blend into the criminal environment like snipers in an urban jungle.” She summed up their novel modus operandi and its impact like this: “Alerted to danger and opportunity alike by honed senses and a symbiotic network of civilian support, they make their jungle every day a little bit safer for West Coast tourism.”

She wasn’t far off, though the Mayor’s Special Task Force on Police/Inner City Relations had phrased it less floridly in the massive 1972 report that laid the groundwork for the BCPD’s special “Zebra” units. When the theory proved out, it could be sweeter than water in the desert. When it revealed some fundamental flaw in the reasoning behind the whole idea, it was hell. Most days it could go either way, depending on how the hand of fate tilted the mirror.

Starsky and Hutch had tempted fate from the day they put their beat cop uniforms in storage to hit the streets under cover as “Zebra Three.” Handed the requisite rank of Detective Sergeant, they were among several teams similarly partnered under the authority of the first black officer in the department’s history to be promoted to Captain of Detectives, Harold Carter Dobey. Dobey made no secret of his pride in all his officers, but in unguarded moments, he let it slip that Starsky and Hutch were his best men. It stood to reason they were also his favorites.

Whether that was true or not, their success gave them star status within the department, and that came with some privileges. A certain amount of jealousy in the ranks was inevitable. Captain Dobey claimed it was easy to tell how confident department personnel were about their own abilities by checking out the expressions on their faces when Starsky and Hutch showed up.

Some of what followed them around headquarters had nothing to do with duty. Their relationship was both easy and intense, like the improbable alliances often forged in combat zones. Not so unusual for cops, but these guys freely reinforced their devotion to each other with verbal and physical intimacies that frankly raised a few eyebrows and made a lot of the guys–even a few of the girls–downright uncomfortable. The way Starsky and Hutch figured it, the “jungle” offered so many ways to die without warning that it never hurt to keep all the important shit straight, right up front, and if people didn’t like it, they could fuck themselves.

Tomorrow was not given. You had to take it.

 

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch; or, Another Workday Bites the Dust

“Starsk–”

“…And cannot afford one–”

“Starsky!”

“…One will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as–?”

“Knock it off, Starsk. He’s out cold.”

“Damn! I’m never gonna get this whole spiel out. How am I supposed to advance in my career this way, huh? That’s the second set of cuffs you owe me now, by the way. What the hell are you doing with yours? No, I don’t wanna know. Keep it up they’ll take away your secret decoder ring–hey, watch it there, Hutch. He could still bite.”

“Out cold.”

“I see that!” Starsky shoved a small card into his leather wallet, under the badge. He inhaled and lengthened his upper body to ease the wallet back into the left rear pocket of his blue jeans. “Maybe he’ll wake up and I’ll have just enough time to rip his throat out before Dobey gets here–”

“Okay, that’s enough, buddy.”

“Ah come on, I can dream, can’t I?”

Hutch groaned and shook his head. “Your dreams are starting to make me nervous.” As he stood up, his hair caught the murky garage lighting and jacked it up a few watts. He reached down to offer a hand to Starsky. “You really should look into analysis.” A wide white smile accompanied the advice. More wattage. He hoisted Starsky to his feet.

Starsky slapped at his thighs. Dust rose from the denim and attached itself to the oily air. “Okay, Hutch, let’s analyze how long it’ll take the black-and-whites to get here with Dobey. Don’t hear no sirens yet.” He bent over slightly to shake some crap out of his hair. He cursed as a ring on the little finger of one hand got snagged in the tangle of curls.

Hutch coaxed Starsky to straighten up. He looked him in the eye then, his hands bracing him by the shoulders and then pulling him gently forward. At first, Starsky’s body was stiff with tension. Hutchinson spoke softly to him until he relaxed, his voice no more than a faint hum in the dank cement cave surrounded by the roar of an unseen city. A minute later, they separated as if on cue.

“All right, Starsk?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

“That was a dumb stunt before. You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”

“I know that.”

“Well, try to control yourself next time. I look lousy in black.”

Starsky glared at him like he was crazy.

 

For This I Went To College?

Hutch’s instinct was to rant at injustices of such monstrous proportions until the veins in his neck throbbed and the heat in his eyes told him it was time to quit. This time, he couldn’t move himself to take even that much action. Action? Words. If only words had the power to make a difference. At best, all they could do was move those who could. What a joke: he was supposed to be one of those guys. Big fucking authority figure. Big fucking failure.

The child’s death had no meaning. That’s what hurt the most. It wasn’t even as understandable as child abuse, or domestic violence, or whatever the hell the social workers were calling it now. Was he just snuffed out for some sicko grownup’s idea of fun? Or was it something even less comprehensible? Madness? Of course. But not the kind he could find any compassion for in his heart, and although it seemed crazy to say so, that seemed wrong too.

So he went home and tossed back two fingers of scotch before realizing it was somebody else’s–left over from some party–and that he hated scotch. Crediting himself with a degree of discipline, he cut himself off, grabbed a canvas and racked it up on an easel out in the semi-enclosed balcony he called his greenhouse. He uncovered his palette of oils and, using one of the thicker brushes, began to stab at the coated linen with the colors of every chakra from butt to brain. He kept at it until he had formed an image of crude objects made graceful by their orderly relation to each other. It was a form of therapy that gave him a chance to think without venturing too far into parts of his mind where he didn’t know his way around so well.

A lesson he’d learned from his maternal grandfather was that the only hope a man has of controlling his life is to keep his balance amid all the polarized forces that sweep through it: right and wrong, self-denial and desire, anger and forgiveness, fear and courage, hatred and love–all those basic things. Yes, balance was absolutely the most valuable tool for a man to own, if he expected to change himself for the better, let alone change the world. That’s what Granddad had said, or words to that effect. It was good advice for the man Ken Hutchinson had become, to whom being even a little off-balance in a predictably chaotic world was terrifying.

As he considered his options, he wondered how a man could know which side of the scale to touch when he understood the need for balance. How did he know when his hand was motivated by wisdom rather than conceit? Maybe it was a matter of faith. Faith in the divine, yes, but more likely, just faith in himself–which was, of course, more problem than solution. There was such massive evil in the world that not even the gravity of a Colt Python and a shiny brass badge gave his hand enough counterweight to shift the scale at all.

The only conclusion he could come to with any certainty was that without Starsky in his life, the very idea of equilibrium might as well not even exist.

After an hour, he had another painting he’d never hang, and another layer of homemade philosophy to hide behind the next time life threw something at him that he didn’t want to catch.

He tossed the paintbrush into a jar of turpentine, wiped his hands, and grabbed a jacket for a quick run on the beach. Maybe on the way back, he’d find himself one of those blissfully noncommittal girls who hung around down there past sundown hoping for a little adventure. Maybe she’d find it adventurous enough to look for someplace to eat, tell him about her California dreams, and come home with him to make at least one of them come true for a while. That always calmed him down. For a while.

 

Some Days, Everything Goes Wrong

Starsky accepted that Hutch had to struggle with his scariest demons by himself. So he’d dropped him off at Venice Place but kept the engine idling long enough to watch him disappear behind the artsy-craftsy door. After ten full minutes had gone by without any shadows passing back and forth in the upstairs windows, he guessed whatever Hutch was doing was something he’d be committed to for a while, so he drove back to Metro. The familiar environment of controlled chaos, and the few friendly faces he’d be sure to see there, even at this hour, would help him keep his own demons in a cage.

Until he got there, he tried not to think about blowing up all houses where little kids could be found dead, tied up in their own bedroom closets, so no one would ever again have to see what he and Hutch had witnessed that morning.

Damn it, he hated when Hutchinson went into his Tahitian monk routine. He needed Hutch to calm him down, help him understand what kind of monster kills a kid like that. And what do we do to his ass when we find him and can I count on you to prevent me from doing it so I don’t wind up stamping out license plates next to the motherfucker in San Quentin for the rest of my life?

He’d let work do its thing on him until midnight, no longer. There was a note from Dobey that they should see him in the morning about hooker hits in their territory. He checked the morgue for the murdered girls’ identities, but neither their names nor what was left of their faces rang any bells.

They’d have to look up Alice tomorrow, probably, so he spent some time confirming her whereabouts. Last time they’d talked to her, maybe five months ago, she’d gone back to turning tricks the old-fashioned way, one corner at a time. The thought of a meeting with her at this stage in the downward spiral of her career made him antsy. There was an old line that Bay City natives have something like a hundred different words for “screwed.” It hit him that by the time she was old enough to go braless and expect it to mean something, Karen Durnst, a.k.a. “Sweet” Alice Trent, had probably needed to use every one of them in that pink leatherette diary they’d flipped through the first time they picked her up, looking for leads on a small-time pornographer suspected of snuffing one of his leading ladies. What was his name? Dino something. No. Martini.

He opened her folder and flipped through the pages of notes, some in his handwriting, most in Hutch’s. Her rap sheet said she was from someplace in Mississippi, but who knew? She had a Southerner’s command of More Colorful Speech. The thought of Alice curled up with the latest issue of Reader’s Digest almost made him smile. Probably just one of many tools she used in her game of romanticism, like brushes in any pretty girl’s makeup kit. He had to admit she was interesting. A real pro, with the smarts to come across–most of the time–as a real amateur. Never could figure out how or why she’d gotten herself wrapped up with that Martini creep. She didn’t strike him as hard-core.

Starsky pegged her act as a cross between defensiveness and denial. She seemed to take a kind of benign pity on her clients. His guess was she saw them as insecure men in need of reassurance, desperate for respect, and most of them probably were He’d bet anything that Hutch was the only man she’d ever known who turned all of that right back on her, with a seductive warmth that would make a casual observer wonder who should be paying whom.

He and Hutch dealt with hookers all the time. There was no reason Alice should get to him the way she did. It wasn’t that he disliked or even distrusted her. He knew how it could be for working girls. Just sometimes she brought out the prude in him; most of them did. Other times, watching her wash down her after-hours wounds with bourbon in some Naugahyde dive, head held high in spite of the knowledge it carried, he could muster up some mercy. How Hutch always found a way to coax the lady out of the tramp on such occasions was a mystery. And a little threatening, too, if he had to be honest about it. Hutch might wind up with someone like her clinging to him someday. Knowing the dummy’s passion for rescue, that would mark the end of anyone else’s chances at him.

He jotted down Alice’s latest address on her file and put it on top of their “New Cases” basket with the charts on the girls in the morgue. So. He’d given work its chance. Took his mind off the poor kid for a while, if nothing else. Would Hutch still be at home now, brooding? Maybe, maybe not: when Hutch’s mind wandered, it could drag the rest of him out to some pretty weird places.

He checked his pocket for keys, stuck a note for Dobey in his cubbyhole, and left the squad room behind.

He still had to talk out this kid’s death and it had to be with Hutch. Not just any brother cop would do, though there were plenty of them around who’d be ready to listen. Maybe it wasn’t kosher, but he didn’t always trust them. Too many times, he’d had his simple faith in good guys thrown back in his face. He’d spent too many days shunned by half the department, thanks to that Prudholm psycho. It made him angrier than even Hutch knew to be shut out of their village of moral authority for something they’d been way too quick to pin on him. It was taking a lot of trips to the taco stand to get the taste of that crap out of his mouth, even all these months after.

Plus, probably he’d need a good old-fashioned hug at some point, and nobody did that better than Hutch; in fact, nobody but Hutch did that at all lately. Problem for another day.

He tromped down to the garage and cranked the Torino’s ignition. At least something was working right. “Working-class flash,” that girl reporter had called his car, in what even Dobey had said sounded like a put-down. He’d had so much other stuff to get straight with her that he’d forgotten to mention the outrageous look of the Torino was part of their street theater, same as the way they dressed and all the other shtick. And even though Hutch made a holy mission out of going the other way for their plain-Jane set of wheels, he’d backed him to the hilt when they talked the department into popping for the finishing touches on the “striped tomato.” It only seemed fair for Starsky to play along whenever Hutch goaded him about it. It was all just to get on his nerves and that was fine. He loved how Hutch got on his nerves. Teased him like they were kids on a playground. They say kids only tease you if they really like you.

In a closet. Tied up in a fucking closet and suffocated by the gag, ’cause he couldn’t breathe through his nose that was probably stuffed up from bawling. Could a person die from dehydration if he cried long enough? Should’ve asked Watkins. Aw Jesus, Hutch. Jesus.

 

Where Does It Hurt?

Hutch’s mood music could be anything from Art Tatum to Gregorian chants. The music coming from his apartment was so faint that Starsky couldn’t tell what it was until he got halfway up the stairs.

Buffy Ste. Marie. Hutch’s voice dialed down to seduction mode. Soft female laughter. Fuck. Nothing like interrupting band-aid sex with the wrapper already half off.

He patted for a key over the door, found none, and settled for their knock. One-two, one. Abruptly, the only sound coming through the door was Buffy. Three, four seconds later, the door opened a crack.

“Your timing stinks, buddy.”

Starsky pushed the door open and bumped through. “Yeah. They tell me that down at the department. Coulda saved a kid’s life if we’d only been there about four years and nine months sooner. Oh, you got company.”

The raven-haired girl on the couch wore bell-bottoms and what was either the top of a two-part bathing suit or an unusually cheerful bra. That she didn’t grab anything to hide it suggested the former, but then, with Hutch’s nature nymphs, you never could tell. She smiled, or at least her lips did.

“Hi. I’m Heather.”

“Nice t’meet you, Heather. You got someplace else you could be?”

“Starsky!”

“Sorry, Hutch. Police business. I’m sure the young lady understands.”

The young lady’s body language started to speak flight. “Are you in trouble, Ken?”

Hutch padded over to the stereo, lifted the tone arm off the record, and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I am. But not like you think. I’m a cop. This is my partner, Dave Starsky. He thinks we need to talk about a case now.” He turned to take Heather’s hand, an act she observed with what looked like disappointment. “I’d like to see you again, if you’ll let me.”

“Oh sure, Ken. Sure, if you want. I, uh, work at the pottery shop, you know, on that same block where we got the coconut shrimp?”

Hutch smiled and nodded.

“Wow. This is freaky. What kind of cop?”

“Nothing you need to worry about unless you’re a very,” he leaned in to kiss a cheekbone, “very bad person, which I already know you’re not.” He kissed the other cheekbone. “Soon, okay?”

The whisper sounded like “Yes.” Heather gathered a Peruvian alpaca bag and some kind of colorful cotton wrap from the other end of the couch, and dug her feet back into her sandals on her way to the door. Well, bye, uh…?”

“Dave. Starsky.”

“Right. Yeah, well. ‘Night.”

The men stared at each other as the girl slipped out of the apartment. Both of them listened to the her footsteps flapping onto each step. The soft thunk of the street door was her unexpectedly restrained exit line.

 

Another Fine Mess

Something almost accusatory appeared in Starsky’s eyes and disappeared before Hutch could object to it. Still, it resonated through Hutch in ways he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“What are you trying to do here, Starsk? It’s the middle of the night.” Hutch flopped down on the sofa, his open hand petting a spot beside him that was still a little warm. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I need to get my head clear.”

“Was Heather helping?”

“She would have. Oh, don’t start with me!”

“No, I won’t do that.” Starsky pulled off his jacket, held it by its shoulder seams, and dropped it over the back of a wooden chair near the fridge. “You want a beer?”

“Yeah.”

“The girlfriend’s not crazy enough and she has too much to lose. I think it really coulda been the father.”

“Not going to talk about it.”

Starsky yanked the refrigerator handle. “You have to. It’s eatin’ me alive.”

“You came all the way over here to hit me with that? You think it’s not eating me, too?”

“Would’ve had stiff competition from Heather, apparently.” He threw the fridge door closed.

“Oh, now that’s a cheap shot.”

“You got no beer in here.” Starsky wandered back to the couch and sat down next to Hutch. “We have to at least make something good come out of this. I mean, after.”

“Change the world? Make it safe for four-year-olds again? Just you and me.”

“That’s not possible. I know that. But look at all the warning signs nobody checked out. What if people knew how important clues like that could be and what if we made it easier for them to come forward?”

“What if Kitty Genovese had screamed louder? Starsk, that’s not our job. Our job is to catch the bad guys. You wanna be a social worker now?”

“No. Come on.”

Starsky sat forward, his hands clutched together between knees that bounced against them like he was some frustrated kid.

“I know, Starsk. I know ERs and kids’ doctors need to look for certain things, and ask questions. Teachers need authority to report suspicious injuries without catching hell–“! !

“Yes. All that stuff. And people need to keep their eyes open in their own neighborhoods and give a shit about what they see. You mentioned Genovese? People saw that and just shut their blinds.”

“Out of fear, not indifference or ignorance.”

“So what? Same outcome for Kitty.”

Starsky launched himself off the sofa and swept his arms around, transforming Hutch’s candlelit apartment into a small stage. “You know Hutch, used to be I’d be walking home from a ball game with a skinned elbow and there’d be ten ladies on the phone to my mom about it before I got through the front door. She’d be standing there with a wet washcloth and iodine.” While Starsky paused, Hutch imagined him jerking away from his mother’s attentions, playing tough, and not fooling her one bit. Sometimes he envied him his hard knock childhood. He smiled.

Starsky bent forward, appealing to him as if he hadn’t heard him at all. “Nobody looks out for each! ! other any more.”

Hutch felt something tighten in his chest. “We do.”

With no hint of bitterness, Starsky waved that off. “That’s our job.”

“I mean you and me. We look out for each other.”

“Yeah? Well, it don’t feel so much like that right now.”

Hutch got up and faced him off.

“I’m sorry about tonight, all right? I needed to get some stuff straight.”

It was quiet enough, and long enough, to reveal that traffic noises on Ocean had calmed.

Starsky stood back, cocked his head for a second and made a playful grab for Hutch’s crotch and held it. “Was ‘stuff ‘ gettin’ straight before I showed up?”

Hutch bent over, tried not to laugh, and failed. When Starsky let up, he sighed. “Ah, maybe. Would’ve been work, if you want to know the truth. But I needed it.”

Starsky backed off, a little agitated. “Oh, okay, I get it. Heather the Hammer.”

“What?”

Starsky swiped a magazine off the coffee table, rolled it up and whacked it! ! over the stone cherubs. “You know, hitting yourself on the head with a hammer ’cause it feels so good when you stop?”

Hutch intercepted the magazine before the cherubs took another hit. “Are you crazy?” He threw the magazine on the floor.

“You’re the one picking up hammers on the beach.” Starsky dropped to the couch and looked up smugly.

“I’m in. Who says I met her on the beach?”

Starsky raised his hand to tick off his arguments on its thumb and two fingers. “Exhibit A, you’re three blocks from the beach. Exhibit B, Heather–that her name, Heather?–got beach babe written all over her. Exhibit C, you smell like low tide. Ipso facto. The prosecution rests.”

“That’s ipso facto.”

Starsky started to snap at the unmerited insult to his Word Power, but slumped back onto the cushions, as if all the energy he’d brought in with him from the street was too much to carry anymore. For a long time he just! ! stared at the ceiling. It was hard for Hutch to tell in the candlelight, but it seemed he was either trying to cry, or trying not to. It wasn’t until Starsky’s eyes closed that the tightness in Hutch’s chest relaxed. He thought about blowing out the candles.

“When you gonna be with me on this, Hutch?”

Hutch turned to see Starsky’s eyes wide open again, but on him now, unnaturally bright in the shifting light and shadows.

He walked slowly to the couch, knelt down and put his hands on Starsky’s knees with a gentle pressure meant to radiate calm–whether for himself or Starsky, he wasn’t sure. “I’m here,” he said.

Starsky’s lips parted as if he were about to say something, but he only took a deep breath and let it out. Beautiful, Hutch thought, as he slid his arms around Starsky and gathered him into a soft hug.

They were still for a long time, allowing silence to bring them closer to where they both needed to be.

Starsky opened the embrace just enough to give himself access to a handkerchief. He swiped at his nose with it and shoved it back where it came from.

“Starsk, you know, we could do that Big Brothers thing Perkowitz was talking about in the cafeteria the other day. I been thinking about that.”

“Nah. Already got a little brother.”

Something in Starsky’s inflection told him to drop that idea for now.

“Or that special school Lisa used to go to? They need help with sports. We could give ’em a few hours a week; get in a little B-ball on the taxpayers’ dime. Be fun.”

“Mm. Maybe.”

Hutch sat back on his heels, his hands dropping lower but maintaining their vital contact. He pinched Starsky’s jeans where the fabric began to flare away from his calf muscles. “There’s a lot more living than dying going on around us, Starsk. That’s something real you can count on, not just a fantasy. It gets harder to remember, the longer we keep on doing what we do. I needed to connect with it again for a while tonight. Get my hands on it.”

Starsky smiled a little. “Sorry I spoiled your plans.”

“You didn’t, buddy. You only changed them.”

 

All Time Is Now; All Places Are Here

Starsky patted Hutch’s face. Warmth from that simple gesture dissolved around Hutch’s voice. It would be all right to talk more seriously about this now. He pushed himself up and positioned himself close beside Starsky on the couch. “So, you want to talk? We’ll talk. You first,” he said.

“Okay.” Starsky hesitated for only a moment. “Your parents ever hit you?”

Hutch wasn’t sure whether to laugh or bolt. “Oh boy. Start with the easy stuff why don’t you?”

“It’s so easy, answer the question.”

“No. I mean, okay I will. I mean no, they didn’t hit me, actually. I don’t think so.” He glanced at Starsky’s face, hoping its expression would be one of acceptance. “My dad was away a lot and my mother had ….” Think, Hutchinson. “Oh, they did their damage, I guess, more…from a distance. And I wasn’t even aware of that until much later.” He steered his subject forward a little in time, into safer waters. “Guess it took being married to Vanessa Culver to make me see how fucked up I really was.”

With a nudge of his shoulder, Starsky said, “And then it took you being friends with me to see you weren’t the one who was fucked up.”

“Oh?”

Starsky bent over and pulled off his sneakers. “You only mess up so much ’cause most of the time, you’re the one with your head screwed on straight. And that big mushy heart an’ all–”

“That’s enough.” Hutch started to get up. Starsky grabbed his pants at the waist and pulled him back down.

“Hear me out. When I met you, you were busy taking the blame for all the craziness and sorrow in the world.”

Hutch folded his arms tightly across his midsection.

“That’s true. Don’t deny it. Probably brought up that way. Like nobles lookin’ out for the serfs or something. Spread the wealth around, just so long as the castle stays in the family. You probably never would’ve figured that out if I hadn’t come along.”

He had to admit there was some truth to that. “All right, Sigmund. You got me.”

“I know.” Starsky casually examined his fingernails. “Sorry about the castle, though.”

“Thanks.” The family’s fall from fortune didn’t hurt so much to think about anymore, except when his mother started reminiscing, and all that did was wear on his nerves. Hutch jabbed Starsky’s thigh. “But what about you? You told me one time you were scared of your father. Hid out from him–”

“No! Hell, no! Well, of course I was afraid, but not because he was gonna hit me. I just couldn’t stand it when he gave me all that ‘I expect better from you’ crap. ‘Your mother’s very disappointed.’ Oh, man. Be ready to throw myself off the Brooklyn Bridge after one of those scenes.”

Hutch laughed at that, and Starsky let him.

“Nah, he was a good man, my dad. Too soft, if anything. That’s what Joey Durniak always said.”

Now there was a memory. “I heard something about that, on our Scenic America tour.”

“What’d he tell you? Never asked you.”

Hutch leaned back and spread his arms along the tops of the cushions. “Not a lot. We mostly went over the security arrangements.” He tapped his fingers on the cushions. “Said your life revolved around baseball. How you gave your brother a hard time. How pretty your mother was when she was young.” He moved his hand to Starsky’s shoulder and let it settle there. “Said your father was like a card-carrying Socialist or something, labor organizer. That true?” He hoped he’d opened the right door.

“Little more complicated than that.”

“I’m a pretty smart guy. Lay it on me.”

Starsky’s dark profile didn’t change, but his voice lightened. “There’s a lot I’ll never know, now Joey’s gone. Ma never talks! ! about it and Uncle Al only ever knew so much.” He angled his feet against the edge of the coffee table. “See, Pop was a driver for this big food distributor down the waterfront. He worked his ass off and we lived pretty nice. Not grand, you know, but nice. He worked his way up to dispatcher, which is sort of management, but not quite.”

Hutch nodded.

“When Transportation Workers started to muscle in, that was a pretty rough time for him, you know? Caught in the middle like that, ’cause the company put pressure on him to fight the union but naturally he sided with the men.” He smiled, much too briefly.

“Naturally.” Hutch tilted his head back for a second. “Transportation Workers. Started out on the New Jersey docks, the longshoremen?”

“Yeah.”

Hutch shifted his weight. “I might be wrong, but I heard they were pretty corrupt. Violent. The whole start of what Durniak was going to testify about.” He looked at Starsky and shook his head. “Was your father into that?”

“You probably got it fed to you that way growin’ up. They could’ve tried to organize Hutchinson Lines before we were even born. I can’t speak for what it was like back then, only after they started spreading out, getting into other things, competin’ with the Teamsters. Sure it was rough. Very rough. But management could be just as bad. Sometimes worse.” He clenched his hands and stared at nothing for an uncomfortably long time. Hutch waited until whatever it was had passed and Starsky relaxed a little. “Long story short, my dad was an idealist. Wanted to make things better for the men and their families the way unions are supposed to work, democratically–by the book, you know, only there really ain’t no book. Only I guess he didn’t know that.”

“There are laws, Starsk. Now, anyway.”

“Tell that to Joe Durniak.”

The image of Durniak lying dead in Starsky’s arms flashed into Hutch’s mind and he pressed his lips tightly together to keep from commenting–a concession Starsky acknowledged with something longer than a glance.

“Well, Pop tried things his way. Never gave up. Uncle Al says he could be a real charmer, a big hit stickin’ his neck out at the rallies and all. Popular guy with a lot of heart.” Starsky made a fist with his left hand and held it out. “Joey said it was all well and good to have heart, but it’s a muscle that only works if you build it up strong.”

“Good point.”

“Yeah, but Joey wanted the new union to go with some, as you might say, unsavory elements to get things done. Same goals, different ways to accomplish them.”

Ah. The missing link between the Joey of Starsky’s youth and the ’76 crime boss turned federal informant. “That’s roughly the story I got. But he didn’t tell me what actually happened, about when your father died.”

For a terrible moment, Hutch thought he’d gone one step too far. He rubbed Starsky’s shoulder. Okay if you don’t want to.

“You got anything to drink here?”

Hutch started to get up. Again, Starsky pulled him back.

“Kidding. It’s okay, Hutch. I made peace with this stuff a long time ago.”

If that was true, Hutch wondered why he’d never mentioned any of it before now. He watched and listened carefully for clues to what Starsky meant by “peace.”

“The company was out to bust the union, see. When my father’s side started gaining ground, they had him killed.” The toes of both feet flexed rapidly a few times. “The idea was, I guess, take a winner out of the game and weaken that team. Then they made it look like Durniak’s organized crime handlers did it, to discredit his side.”

The feet were back on the floor. Starsky was up and pacing again. “I think that’s why Joey paid for the funeral. He made sure it was well-attended by everybody from both sides. Took care of us after. So everybody’d know the score. Keep the union from falling apart.”

God almighty. “No wonder he said you didn’t know whether to love him or hate him.”

“Yeah.”

“How old were you then?”

Starsky rubbed a spot behind one ear. “Thirteen. Almost fourteen.”

“Must have been rough.”

Starsky wandered back toward the couch, looking like he wanted to make light of a time that must have been more than just rough. “Well, you know, things started gettin’ tense at home. Joey’d be coming by with his goons for friendly little visits and Ma didn’t like it. Neither did I, and I guess I started getting an attitude. Started getting into some trouble.” He sat down a little farther away than Hutch liked, and angled one leg atop the other. Adjusted a sock. Didn’t look up.

“After a year or so, Ma decided she could handle Joey all right, but Nick and me’d be safer out here. ‘Follow the Dodgers,’ she said. Tried to make it sound like a friggin’ field trip. Nicky stayed home, though. Uncle Al couldn’t handle us both.”

“Damn.”

He plucked at his sock. “Yeah.”

“Makes my life in Beautiful Downtown Duluth sound like a joyride.”

“That’s because it was.”

“Oh.”

“Dumb blond.”

Hutch smiled fondly but Starsky was still quiet. What he said next wasn’t at all what Hutch expected.

“I talked to Watkins down in the morgue earlier tonight.”

Oh no, Starsk, please. Not now. “What about it?”

“Unofficial, of course. They can’t start the autopsy until Thursday, but he said from what they found at the scene, the boy was probably already unconscious when he was tied up. Head trauma. Wouldn’t have taken much to scramble his brains at that age, he said. When he came to, he probably didn’t even know what was going on. No obvious signs of older injuries, yet. Still horrible, but not as bad as we imagined.”

“You mean, even if we’d found him alive, there’d have been too much brain damage…?”

Starsky nodded. “I think what happened is the father hit him or something and panicked and…and did what we saw to cover it up. Got the girlfriend to call the cops and say they found him that way. Sick fucking bastard!”

“Now wait. We can’t speculate. Tomorrow we go asking more questions and kicking trash. We’ll turn something. Not going to be pretty.”

“It’s already about as not-pretty as it gets. Meanwhile, we got working girls turning up very, very dead, too. We see Dobey about that in the morning. Watkins showed me the latest bodies. I wouldn’t bother eatin’ a big breakfast tomorrow if I was you.”

“Yeah.” Hutch thought about tomorrow and decided he didn’t want to live in it before it came. “Want some wine? I opened some before, but we didn’t get around to it.”

“Now you tell me! How long’s it been open?”

“I dunno. Hour?”

“What kind?”

Hutch pushed himself from the couch and went for the bottle on the kitchen counter. “Jean-Louis somebody. Hermitage? Can’t see….”

“Hey! I gave you that last year. That’s very good grape! Uncle Abe sent me a whole case.”

Hutch tried to sound pleased with himself, which he was not. “Well, then, better it be for me and thee than wasted on some hammer. Get glasses, will ya?”

Starsky got up to scrounge in the kitchen cupboard for wine glasses and brought them back to the coffee table.

As Hutch poured, he nursed a pang of guilt for having opened such a special bottle of wine earlier on so ignoble an occasion. His concern melted away when Starsky held his glass up to the candlelight, then tipped it toward him with a soft smile.

It had been a long time since he’d seen that one. “Say it, Starsk.”

The smile bloomed. “To life.”

Hutch nodded, raised his glass to Starsky’s and returned the smile. “To life.”

 

Wine Makes Any Meal Special

Starsky stretched forward, using his glass to paint the scene from a distant past that he’d imagined for years. “See, they built Dodgers Stadium right on top of this whole Mexican community where people got bulldozed out years before. Promised ’em new houses and relocation money and everything, like that was supposed to compensate, but of course they just got screwed.”

“America the beautiful.”

“Really.”

“I had no idea.”

“So a lot of the fans still call it Chavez Ravine, like a sort of memorial.” Starsky had the wine glass at his lips when he flashed on something Hutch could relate to. “You know Paco Ortega, right? He was born up there. Seven or so when his family got booted out. Lost everything.” He took a sip. “You could ask him about it.”

Hutch’s eyes lost their focus for a few seconds. “Yeah. Maybe I will.” He drank a little more of his wine. “So what did you wind up doing?”

“Aw, we went to the game anyway. Stupid kids, free tickets, what did we care about that stuff? I was real sorry about it afterward, though. Uncle Al made sure of that. Plus I was grounded for…two weeks, something like that.”

Hutch shook his head and chuckled.

“Hardly ever hung out with Scooter after that. One day he said he wasn’t coming around anymore ’cause his dad told him I was a Commie. He left the Jew part out, but I inferred it.”

“And you didn’t fight back?”

“What for? People don’t lose their prejudices because they’re scared. They have to think they figured it out on their own.” He checked Hutch to make sure he understood. What he saw went far beyond understanding.

When Hutch smiled like that, Starsky thought, it was like when the moon came out from behind clouds and you could see everything clear as day, only without all the flaws. He swallowed, hard, and glanced down at his wine. Decided to polish it off.

Hutch did likewise. “This is good. Earthy,” he said. “You have a whole case of it?”

“Not anymore, farm boy.”

“Oh.” Hutch put down his glass. He tilted the bottle, only half finished, and corked it. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to make this last.”

Starsky thought more about that than he probably should have. He put his glass down beside Hutch’s and stopped thinking. What the hell. He raised his hands toward Hutch, slid his fingers through the pale hair, coming to rest on either side of a face whose expression froze somewhere between naked fear and the anticipation of euphoria.

“I’m going to kiss you, Hutch. No big deal. Just feel like it. Okay?”

Two blinks for yes.

It was the kiss he did best, the long, deliberate one without much pressure, so every nerve stayed on edge. The kind that could easily get serious, or that, like now, could just be the kind that said, “This is how I love you. This much.” On the edge of need, but undemanding, just in case it turned out to have been a really bad idea.

 

Film at Eleven

Starsky sang “Monday, Monday,” and da-da-da-dahed his way through the rest of the lyrics he’d never paid attention to. The tune was happy enough to keep himself awake and his consciousness functioning on the dawn drive to Hutch’s place.

Late the night before, he’d survived giving Hutch a good long smackeroonie, purely in the interest of friendship and also–it was understood–flattery. Hutch knew damn well how pretty he was, and the effect his personality could have on people when he let it loose. It didn’t pay to pretend it wasn’t there, any more than you should avoid “the elephant in the room,” like they were teaching in those race relations workshops at the Academy. Yeah, Hutch would probably be pissed if his own partner didn’t hose the elephant down once in a while. Well, maybe he shouldn’t put it exactly like that.

“Monday, Monday…da-da-da-dah.”

Hell, Hutch risked life and limb year after year to keep the good people of Bay City safe in their beds at night. Having looks that inspired the admiration of strangers was small enough reward; far be it from his best friend to withhold his share of oohing and ahhing. Good, that was a good one; remember that. But Hutch wouldn’t humor him indefinitely. One of these days, Davey Starsky, the exiled Prince of Thirteenth Avenue, would pay dearly for having the chutzpah to reach out for all that raw blond beauty like he had some kind of exclusive right to it.

Hutch was waiting for him on the sidewalk when he drove to the curb. He hopped in without incident. All the way to Metro, his mouth was occupied exclusively with the demolition of a very wet, very noisy apple.

Once at their desks with fresh coffee, ready to get cracking on the Pedersen homicide, they found their New Case basket loaded with helpful hints from Child Protective Services, some kind of advocate from the Family Court, and four other official places, none of whom represented the Office of the Prosecutor. Without formal charges–and Starsky was still focused on the father–their hands were really tied. All they could do was “investigate,” which was always interesting, but in this case didn’t sound to either of them nearly as satisfying as “arrest.”

“Look at this, Hutch. Parents divorced. Mother sued for custody and lost. History of drug abuse.”

Hutch took the file and studied it more thoroughly. “Some marijuana back in the sixties. Dropped acid once; admitted to that. Said it made her see things and freaked her out. So, flower child phase. Looks like she got over it with a stint in rehab. That’s it?”

“Must have been more to it than that. What court would take a kid away from its mother unless she was unfit? Mothers are mothers.”

Hutch shook his head and reached for other folders containing the usual case histories, multicolored copies of forms, memos, various sworn statements and other filings from attorney’s offices. “Starsk–there’s all this stuff from the father, with different lawyers. From Chase Wolford, Johnston and Novelli–here, look at this, Parker Page Watkins, too. Real French-cuff outfits. Must’ve cost him a fortune. Does he have that kind of money? The house is nothing special.”

“Location, location.”

“Nothing from the mother but these handwritten letters. A little crazy looking. There must be a dozen here.”

“Dated when? When did all this go down?” Starsky went to refill his coffee mug.

“Court awarded custody May nineteenth last year, looks like right after the divorce decree. Mrs. Pedersen appealed the same day.” Hutch paused while he flipped a few pages back.

“And?”

“Denied. Then there’s–”

The edge to Dobey’s voice when he called out to the squad room was enough to cause Starsky and Hutch to abandon everything but their boss.

“Men, we’ve got a situation at the Pedersen house. ”

“Besides homicide?” Starsky asked on his way in, hoping the prosecutor had finally brought charges.

“Listen up. Some neighbors leaving for work early this morning saw red spray paint from the sidewalk up to the Pedersen’s front entrance. An arrow pointing to the door, and the word ‘killer’ sprayed over it. They called police, and the two units responding found the paint still wet and an envelope thumb-tacked to the door.”

“From Mrs. Pedersen,” Hutch said.

“Right.” Dobey glared at Starsky. “What do you know about this?”

“Nothing yet, but we’ve been looking over case files. She fought a losing custody battle for Daniel against an ex-husband who bought himself the whole damn California Bar Association to fight her. Don’t know yet, but she could be either a drugged-out whacko or a good mama who got screwed.”

Hutch cut in. “What are you telling us she became this morning?”

“The message in the envelope said she’s holding her ex-husband hostage at gunpoint until he confesses to murdering their son. She wants the state to retroactively give her custody of the boy so she can, she says, ‘bury him with love’ as his proper guardian.”

“Oh, God.”

“Starsky, you’ll take command of any uniformed officers you need to secure the place and find a safe way in. Lyngard and Estes are there now. Hutchinson, you’re good with hysterical women and you’re more objective about the outcome of this case, so you’ll be the star negotiator. Take your cues from Sam. Starsky, you fingered Pedersen from the get-go. Unless he’s a fool, he’s picked up on that, so you keep a low profile. I’ll handle the media. Now, get going.”

“But Captain–”

“Move it!”

Hutch stopped to grab the entire contents of their New Case basket and followed Starsky out of the squad room. Neither said a word until they were airborne in the Torino.

While Starsky drove at speeds well above caution, Hutch reviewed the papers, even though reading in a moving vehicle always made him feel sick, and let Starsky in on anything that could be relevant. He started with the woman’s letters. The first ones he’d thought at first looked crazy were on cheap flowered stationery of the kind he’d seen in variety stores. They became progressively more businesslike. The last few, mercifully for Hutch’s stomach, were neatly typewritten. All of them told a story of pleas for help that went ignored wherever the woman sought help after her husband’s coercion had taken deadlier turns. She had taken her child, then two years old, and fled to a friend’s house in Bakersfield, only to be threatened with charges of child endangerment and kidnapping to force her back. And throughout it all, the husband had emphasized Emma’s youthful drug experimentation to the point of accusing her of being an addict. Hutch couldn’t get the whole story en route, but what he couldn’t read, he could guess. No addict could have mounted the attack on injustice reflected in those later letters. It wouldn’t be hard to take her side. He wondered how it was possible that no one in authority had done so before.

Before a child had to die.

As the Torino pulled in behind Sam’s communications van, Hutch figured his first call should be to the prosecutor’s office, if they hadn’t already been patched through. He wanted to assure Emma Pedersen that justice would be done–yes, too late, but at last–if she would only step outside and lay her weapon down so they could escort her to safety, where they could talk about what to do next.

The two blocks surrounding the Pedersen house had already turned into a circus. In addition to the broadcasters’ remote trucks, street reporters, and groups of neighbors pressing against the crime scene tapes, there were no fewer than twelve official Bay City vehicles on hand, each fully staffed with uniformed and civilian personnel. Sam Lyngard’s Hostage Intervention Team–“The HIT Squad,” as they were called around Metro–was already deployed under a tent beside the big white van, with “Proud Mary” Estes taking the pulse of everything within her reach, keeping the team quiet and ready to act on Sam’s orders.

When Hutch landed on solid ground beside Sam’s van, the first thing that caught his full attention was the bullhorn Sam shoved up against his chest. Sam’s flat voice came with it.

“You’re on, Surfer Boy.”

Hutch took the bullhorn awkwardly, unprepared for its heft. “What’s the story so far?”

“We think they’re in the living room,” Sam said. “She pulled the drapes closed on that big window there when we started setting up. Not a peep out of her. Won’t answer the phone. Assuming that things are the same in there as after the child’s body was discovered, there’s the one phone in the living room, another in the kitchen and a third one in the upstairs bedroom right over it, in the back. We’re ready with hints if you need ’em.”

Starsky drew up behind Hutch and Sam, checking his weapon while Hutch familiarized himself with the bullhorn’s features.

“Surfer Boy?” he said to Hutch.

“Long story, Starsk.” He played out the cord to the! ! bullhorn to determine its length. “What’s your take?” Without waiting for Starsky’s answer, he stepped toward the sidewalk where the red spray-painted arrow began. Whoever had done it–Emma, he assumed–had done every inch of the job in one go, with a steady hand. The woman had no misgivings to exploit.

Starsky holstered his automatic and tugged his jacket back into place. “It’s like Mars Attacks out here. All we need is the Sherman tanks. She wants to tell the world her story, now’s the time.”

Hutch nodded. A twist of anger in his belly made him wish he could hit something. “I’d like a warrant for our hostage’s arrest right now. Damn.”

Starsky pressed his lips tight together, turned and stared hard in Dobey’s direction, then spun around and pressed a hand against Hutch’s chest. “Here’s an idea. What if Emma files formal charges?”

“I thought of that. On what grounds? She couldn’t possibly have been a witness.”

“Oh no? I’d say she’s been sittin’ on the sidelines of that kid’s murder from the day he was born. Doesn’t make her an accomplice. She blew the whistle how many times? Not her fault nobody listened.”

“I can’t talk her into it without tipping him off. No telling what he might do to her. Who knows if she’s still the one with the gun?”

“‘Cause he hasn’t used it yet.”

Hutch’s jaw muscles clenched so hard the fillings in his molars hurt. “Yeah.”

“His choices are police custody or his ex-wife’s loaded rage. I’d say we got better than half a chance he’ll play nice.”

“Get Dobey.”

“No. No suits. Just do it.”

The determination in Starsky’s eyes, and the calm assurance of his voice, gave Hutch all the permission he needed.

“Sam? Ready.”

“You’re live from me. When you want to talk, press down on the inside of the handle. Let up on it when you’re done. Just use a normal voice. I’ll adjust your volume. Go.”

When Hutch moved up the sidewalk toward the house, the media stopped in their tracks and turned their antennae toward him, like cockroaches honing in on a discovery of dirty dishes.

“Emma? This is Ken Hutchinson. I’m a detective investigating your son’s murder.”

Nothing. Didn’t expect more than that yet.

“My partner’s here, too, Emma. Detective David Starsky. He’s ready to arrest Mr. Pedersen on your say-so. He doesn’t have to confess. What you wrote on the door is all we need for now. If you say Mr. Pedersen is a killer, we’ll take him in right now. We can get your formal accusation later, when you’re up to it. Is he in there with you?”

Nothing yet. Of course. Too soon.

“We’ve been reading your letters, Emma. About Mr. Pedersen, and Daniel. We want to help you. There’s a lot of reporters and television cameras out here right now. You can talk to them about what was in those letters after you bring your ex-husband out.”

Let that sink in.

“Mr. Pedersen? You know it’s over now. Let! ! Emma bring you out here to us. This will be over. You’ll be safe. It’s our job to ensure that. Then you can call your lawyers.”

Four heartbeats later, the drapery on the window jerked halfway open, revealing the figure of a man with his hands held at either side of his head. Pedersen. Suddenly, he lurched forward, snapping his head so his right cheek pressed hard against the glass. The glass trembled but held.

Sweat began to creep down Hutch’s back, itchy between his shoulder blades. He pulled a hand down over his damp face and looked over his shoulder, feeling a brief wave of dizziness. Starsky had moved off, weaving through the uniforms, setting the stage. He took a deep breath to calm himself and blew it out. “Call her now, Sam.”

“Take it, Mary.” Officer Estes pushed a button and a brief dial tone, followed by seven rapid beeps, sounded under the tent. “You’ll be able to hear her, Detective, but keep using the horn to talk back until we’re sure she can hear us through the phone.”

“Emma? It’s Ken Hutchinson again, Emma. Can you answer the phone in the living room? Just pick it up and let us know, yes or no, if it works. Then we can talk privately, you and me. No need for Mr. Pedersen to hear what we say. That’s all we need right now.”

A muffled click bounced around under the tent, then a woman’s voice, distant, incoherent, then closer, gasping.

Pedersen backed away from the window just enough to turn his face forward. His hands were still raised. He seemed to be mouthing a plea for help. Hutch wanted to pity him, but the image of the man’s dead son made it easy for him to stuff that impulse down.

“Emma, stay on the phone with me for just a minute while we work this thing out. Mr. Pedersen, you just stay calm. I’m going to ask Emma to bring you out. Do what she says.”

Pedersen pressed forward again, his shoulders leaning into it, as if he were willing himself to blend with the glass and escape through it into the air outside.

Starsky was at Hutch’s back again. Hutch reached for his arm and nudged him toward the house. He needed no further instruction to make his way quickly across the twenty yards or so to some bushes on the side of the front door opposite the picture window. He drew his weapon, crouched at the edge of Hutch’s line of sight, and waited.

The woman on the phone was still impossible to understand. She alternated between muttering as if to herself, and shouting so loudly that the receiver distorted her voice. Each time she raised her voice, the man in the window became more animated.

“Emma, I’ve sent Detective Starsky up to the front door so he can arrest your husband when you bring him out. He’s the one who told me about your letters. We’ve been trying to figure out how we could help you, ever since we read them. So will you make Mr. Pedersen come to the front door now, Emma?”

The first understandable words came through–strong and lucid: “You want him? Here he is.”

Three explosive shots shattered the picture window. Hutch ducked instinctively at the sound of gunfire, skinning the knuckles of his gun hand on a rusty edge of the bullhorn as he dropped it and went for his revolver.

Pedersen’s body crashed through the window as if shoved with tremendous force. He pitched forward from the waist to slam head-down outside, arms dangling from his shoulder sockets, like wet laundry slapped over a clothesline by a washerwoman fed up with her work.

Across the street, a flurry of black uniforms closed protectively on Captain Dobey. Police cruisers revved their engines. The cockroaches scurried into the woodwork of neighboring homes and remote trucks.

Starsky rose to a crouch, his revolver aimed at the door, and nervously flicked his eyes toward Hutch, looking for a signal.

Large shards of glass fell from the top edge of the window around Pedersen’s body. One of them pierced the back of his head and swayed in place for several seconds before it tilted to one side and snapped in the ivy below Pedersen’s head with a crystalline plink, then thudded into the mulch. Two bright splotches high on Pedersen’s back and to the left of his spine had already spread into one; gravity pulled stripes of red down over his neck, shoulders, and arms.

Time held Hutch’s breath in a chokehold; fear of what might break next seemed to stop his heartbeat. Only a glance at Starsky’s tense body gave him what he needed to make time and his own blood move again.

Hutch crouched to retrieve the fallen bullhorn and raised it to his mouth as he stood, trusting that it would still work, and that whatever voice came out of it would be saying the right thing.

“Emma, it’s Detective Hutchinson again. I’m worried about you. Do you need any help?”

The tent filled with the sound of a telephone receiver falling into its cradle, followed by a dial tone.

“Emma, we…I know you tried to warn the authorities about the danger your son was in. They tried to do what was best for him, but they were wrong.” He ignored the few gasps behind him. “There are reporters here. Newspapers, television, all of them listening, Emma. Will you let them help you tell your story? ”

A single explosion answered him from inside the house, seeming louder, closer now without the window to muffle it. Hutch turned quickly to see Starsky sink behind the shrubbery. He released the bullhorn’s talk lever and called to him. “Starsky! All right?”

“Yeah,” Starsky called back.

Hutch turned his attention back to the house, but hardly with relief. Oh God, Emma. “Sam, better get an ambulance up here. And the coroner’s wagon.” He squeezed the bullhorn’s handle.

“I’m worried that you’ve hurt yourself, Emma, so I’m sending my partner in to check on you. He had a gun, but he’s leaving it outside where you can see it, so don’t be afraid. And we have paramedics coming in, too.”

Starsky acted on all his cues and was inside the house as the ambulance crew swarmed into place on the sidewalk. Hutch waited for his all-clear from Starsky.

Instead, not ten seconds later, he saw him in the open doorway, one hand steadying himself on the jamb, the other at his belt, an expression on his face that could mean only one thing.

Sam saw it, too. “Take your time, fellas,” he called to the paramedics. To Hutch, he said, “Checkmate, Hutch. Sorry. You did real good.” He took the bullhorn, turned away from the house and spoke into it. “Captain Dobey, please come to the communications tent.”

Hutch never took his eyes off Starsky’s as he went to him at the door. When they were within inches of each other, he laid a hand on his face to link them in a moment of sanity before going inside to start the gruesome task of mapping what had happened there that day.

It was as ugly as they could have imagined. Though they’d entered worse scenes, this was horrific. The place was already starting to stink. The woman who had tried in vain to get someone to listen to her no longer had a voice. Her nearly decapitated body lay sprawled on its back in the archway between the living and dining rooms. A peculiar looking weapon, half handgun, half rifle, was on the floor several yards away, its trajectory stopped by a china closet and its smashed contents.

“Quite a recoil,” Starsky said.

Hutch tried to keep himself from thinking about Jackie Kennedy. Some said the Zabruder film showed her crawling out on the trunk of the limousine to catch pieces of the president’s skull. Others said she was fleeing in a direction her terrified mind told her was away from the source of danger. He knew how she might have felt under both scenarios. He wanted to piece poor Emma Pedersen back together again and he wanted to run the hell out of the cursed house, where carnage now joined what had only been tragedy a couple of days before. Only tragedy.

The half of Pedersen’s corpse that was still inside the room was dressed in khaki slacks now stained with his filth. Shit outta karmic luck, Hutch thought, almost allowing himself to smirk. A fitting end for the bastard. He didn’t care if God heard him say so. God probably agreed with him, and if He didn’t, to hell with Him.

Department personnel arrived to record data and collect the evidence that would tell the story Emma never would. Their efficiency was an almost comforting distraction for a while, but the comfort level sank to a more realistic one when the coroner’s people came to scrape up and bag the bodies. Coordinating such activities gave Starsky a needed sense of control. Hutch found them disturbing and tended to distance himself, to intellectualize what he knew a normal person would have to be crazy not to experience from the gut, and the gut only.

While he searched the house–the second time in a week–for clues to Pedersen’s role in the death of little Daniel, and now in his own, he went from room to room, once more noting the curious presences and absences of ordinary things. All the contradictions he’d puzzled over before now made sickening sense.

On the other side of the upstairs windows, the morbid circus played on. In the midst of it, like a bland ringmaster in some Felliniesque nightmare, Dobey was probably saying “No comment” to all the circus freaks, as tastefully as he knew how.

No one else would be doing that in this neighborhood for some time to come. Every neighbor would have a story to sell. That’s the way these real-life dramas went, and it made him almost sicker than the scene in the living room. Reporters would use the term “murder/suicide” as if they were talking about the Super Bowl, or about how paparazzi had caught some celebrated has-been staggering out of detox, one manicured hand clutching her manager’s jacket around what was left of her disco dress while the other swatted at flashbulbs. He’d swatted at a few of those himself, so if he had to take a side, it would be hers. Fuck-ups of a feather.

Though he’d once more thoroughly searched the bathroom, master bedroom and another that seemed to serve as junk storage, he spent only enough time in Daniel’s bedroom to reassure himself that a closer look could wait. He instructed Officer Adams to seal off the staircase for him.

Starsky was patting some lab-coated girl on the back as she left through the front door, the last one out of a house that would soon be ready for the cleaning crews and real estate agents. Life goes on. “New kid?”

“Yeah. Tough scene for a first time out.” Starsky put away his notebook. “Find anything interesting?”

“Somebody was preparing for a brand new life somewhere else, apparently. Everything but two tickets to Rio on the nightstand. Follow the bouncing girlfriend.”

“That would only get you as far as San Diego. We’ll need her for questioning.”

“They can round her up. They owe us one from that fiasco last year.” Hutch turned toward the area where Emma had lain. “Wonder what she looked like.”

“I’m sure her high school yearbook picture’ll be on the evening news. Last Christmas together before the divorce probably by tomorrow night. Some producer up in the hills already revvin’ up the Jacuzzi to hit on whoever he thinks should play her in a movie of the week.”

Hutch swallowed that thought with a touch of bile, put an arm around Starsky’s shoulders and walked with him outside, where Captain Dobey was waiting to offer his car, their own welcoming Torino, and wailing cruisers fore and aft as a getaway convoy–destination: the mayor’s office.

Back at Metro, Dobey’s conclusion about their tense hour-long meeting with the mayor was that some of the agencies whose colorful forms had filled Starsky and Hutch’s basket that morning would reevaluate their evaluation protocols and some new forms would be requisitioned. He headed straight back into! ! his office then and slammed the door behind him.

Down the hall, one of Mary Estes’ young communications interns figured the women’s libbers would soon demand more funding for battered women’s shelters and they might even try to name one after Emma Pedersen. Mary pointed out that, technically, Emma was a murderer, and that this would probably not go down well with potential funding sources. When would those naïve Nellies learn how to play the game? She’d like to be able to cheer them on.

Later that night at Rosey’s Diner, Starsky picked at his second bowl of chili while Hutch stared at an inedible tuna burger.

“Look, Hutch. As crude as you might want to call all of the attention this case is gonna get, it might wake some people up and save some other kid’s life someday. Don’t ya think?”

“Maybe,” Hutch said, without thinking.

“Somebody who was still half-asleep in their own little workaday world noticed the red spray paint and thought, ‘Better call the cops.’ That’s a step in the right direction.”

Hutch tilted his half-empty beer glass toward himself, then away, then let it wobble to a rest.

Starsky pressed on. “There’s gotta be some kinda justice in this somewhere. The world’s gonna know what a piece of shit that Pedersen was, and how that little kid’s mom got shafted, and what it cost the kid. Hey.” He lifted his glass and tapped Hutch’s, with only enough enthusiasm to make his point. “To justice?”

Hutch smiled for Starsky, because Starsky had earned it. “Yeah. Justice.”

Not soon enough, Emma, he thought, but at last.

 

A Hard Man Is Good To Find

Dear Diary, Alice thought, as she straightened out her smile and began to write. Went shopping for one of those little massage oil warmer sets. Found a pretty blue one at Pots! ! ‘n’ Hands and it works real nice, but what a surprise–Blondie walked in just as I was taking it over to the salesgirl and I pretended I didn’t recognize him because you never know. I don’t think he saw me, or maybe didn’t recognize me looking regular like I did. He was there to see the salesgirl about messing up some date he had with her, sounded like. She looked about as glad to see him as I was. Wonder where he gets his ideas of himself? Must not be from females ha ha. I was thinking about the last time he hunted me down. Came in the Neptune bar with Brillo Boy wanting to know about that creepy old bitch in the Beaver Cleaver house–forget her name. Blondie came on all cooing and smiling so sweet like he’s God’s gift to hookers. I told him I’d quit the life someday and then I’d get him, blah blah blah, and he fussed with my dress and said he might just let me–Lord, what an ego! Brillo Boy was guarding the door the whole time as if I’d run away. Ha ha–guess he never wore high heel platform sandals! Oh well. Trying out Jolly Roger’s Pub tonight over at the new Westland. Right bartender, right clientele, nice lighting and bathrooms and all since they redid the place. I think I’ll wear long plum Quiana dress with the black lace bikinis. Plum looks fun with Fiestas. Pauline says she can get $100 for quick hand jobs up in the rooms. Can walk to her place from there, use shower an all. Bring usual plus sneakers, shorts, top, big towel, dog biscuits. Sounds too good to be true–well I could use a break! Wrap the bracelet and scarf for P, cigars for bartender. Cash check.

 

Your Mother Was Right

These renovated hotels had charm. Jack Davis lay on the four-poster bed, his dress shirt open at the throat and his belt loosened, staring over the tops of silk-and-viscose socks at a wall he estimated to be fully four and a half yards away from the foot of the bed. It was not the largest room in the hotel, nor on the topmost floor, but it had a certain something. He wondered what famous dead movie star might once have lived in it, but didn’t entertain the speculation long. Such trivia was a pointless waste of a mind like his. The kinds of details that interested him had to have meaning. Meat. Had to be dangerous.

He’d once tried to explain to a film editor that the sensory component of the human nervous system functions by looking for contrasts, edges. In the absence of contrast, there is no perception. When one looks at a blank wall, one ignores the wall and attends to a patched nail hole, or its juncture with the floor. “Given a canvas of snow,” he’d told her, “the mind seeks a naked branch, or the eyes of a wolf.” She’d laughed at him. So he added a detail to the blank whiteness of her flesh, to sharpen her perception, if not her wits, and in the end, he imagined she got the point. And now, he could laugh at her.

Jackie had gotten away with murder that time. And seven other times, too. It was beautiful. Bright as he! ! was, he was humble enough to have devoted much of his life to blurring the contrasts and edges that had once made him unique, that might once have made him stand out, even in the diverse, dramatic world of Hollywood’s criminal elite. Now, no one would ever guess the savagery of which he was capable in the cause of righting the many slights he had suffered during his days doing continuity at MGM. Most people were poor observers. Wouldn’t know how to get by on cleverness alone, not even half as successfully as he had, and many had paid dearly for this shortcoming. He always smiled deeply and fondly when he told himself that ten minutes in his company could be a test of a person’s ability to survive in the wild.

The light around the draperies had dimmed. It was nearly time. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and began to reassemble his costume. Dark gray gabardine suit with a soft blue tie. Power and trustworthiness in one perfectly tailored package. He smiled into the cheval mirror, spared a few minutes to be sure everything in the room was in order, then strode out to play his game.

Twenty-three steps to center of the elevator waiting area. Yellow carnations–was that a natural color for carnations or were they dyed?–in a copper pot on what was noticeably fake Restoration, which meant either that someone in this place was stupid beyond belief, or else clever enough to have the makings of an amusing friend. He might risk coming around later to find out.

Slow elevator, but good and quiet. Nineteen seconds to the ground floor. Seventeen steps to the heavy walnut and etched-glass doors of the hotel bar. He touched the knuckles of one hand to the brass plate of the right one and pushed his way in.

Dark inside, not surprising. Parchment shades on lamps dimly revealing the faces of twelve–no, no, fourteen–patrons at a dozen small round tables scattered around an oddly shaped room. Mostly men. And the usual working girls. Big bar like the one they transported for Oysters directly from that bombed-out place in Hammersmith. Maybe it was the same one. The studio auctions were just depressing. Precious cultural patrimony lost to a lot of “faceless people out there in the dark” with too much money, who’d outgrown their scrapbooks. He chose a stool at the far end of the bar offering a view forward and no access from behind.

A paunchy bartender with slicked-back gray hair ambled over to take his order.

“Courvoisier, yes sir. Here on business?”

“You could say that.”

“What’s your game?”

Jack Davis leaned forward and said, in his best conspiratorial tone, “I send people off on exotic trips. Help them to see things from a new perspective.”

“Oh, travel agent, huh? The wife and I, we like to get away every chance we get. Hey, we’ll have to have a talk.”

Jack Davis winked. How he loved to say it: “Courvoisier.”

“You bet.” As the bartender headed for his mirrored brandy shelf, Jack Davis almost felt sorry for the poor slob. He was probably congratulating himself that the “travel agent”–oh God, wasn’t that rich!–was watching him with respect and gratitude. He wasn’t.

Instead, Jack Davis floated his eyes over the small gathering of opportunities scattered around the bar, settled on one, and waited for his drink.

 

Beats Being a Secretary and Anyway, I Can’t Type

Pauline nodded to the bartender and exchanged a little wave with him. “That’s Ben. He looks out for us, so treat him good.” She pointed discretely to Alice and mouthed, “Alice.” Ben nodded and went back to his bar business.

Alice pulled two gift packages out of her black brocade satchel and put them on the table. “Got him some real good cigars. I saw he smokes ’em.”

“Aw, that’s nice, honey. He’ll like that.”

“And this is for you, Pauline, honey. It’s just that yellow flowered scarf we saw in Didi’s. It’d go real nice with this.” Alice touched the skirt of Pauline’s dress. “And the bracelet Maury gave me that was too big for me. Might be for you, too, but I remember you admired it. You could have some links taken out.”

Pauline took the package with a warm smile. “Thanks. You shouldn’t have.”

“Oh, well, it’s nice of you setting me up here, and letting me use your place and all. Think of it as a hostess gift.”

“Can I open it now?”

“Might as well.”

Alice was anxious to get on with it, and waggled one foot under the table while Pauline unwrapped the package, cooed over the contents, and tucked them into her purse. When she felt she could escalate the chit-chat into something profitable for herself, she caught Pauline’s eye. “So? What’s the deal here?”

All business again, Pauline laid it out. “He puts it on their bar tabs and keeps twenty-five per cent. You get the rest in cash at closing. That’s two o’clock. No early checkouts, but no startups after one. He expects you to average three a night, three or four nights a week. That’s up to you. I gave you the rates; remember ’em?”

Alice tossed her head so her hair would bounce and shimmer. “‘Course I do,” she said with a wink and a smile.

“Also, don’t outright ask for tips, but whatever you get extra, you can keep all of it. Not bad, honey, I’m tellin’ ya.”

That was an understatement. “Fine. The other girls okay?”

“We get along. No dopers that I know of. Just us girls, y’know? Payin’ the rent.”

Alice rolled her eyes. This was just too good to be true. She kept telling herself that.

“Tell Ben what room number you’re going to on your way out. If you’re not back down in forty minutes he’ll send somebody to check up on you.”

Alice and Pauline gave a moment of solemn acknowledgement to a fact of life in the life, no matter how good the gig. She felt Pauline’s hand on her leg under the table.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. There’s never been any rough stuff here! ! that I know of. These are mostly just family men here on business, hoping to get a little something of what they don’t get at home, just to take the edge off, you know?”

Alice nodded sympathetically. What those cold-fish wives didn’t do, or know how to do, was none of her business. “Well, I’m ready.”

Pauline scanned the room and pointed out a guy seated near the rest rooms, nursing a beer and going over some papers with a short pencil. “I’d steer clear of him. Michelle says he expects to go around the moon for fifty bucks.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

“He’d prob’ly want them to watch, too!”

Both women fell toward each other, giggling. A man at one end of the bar took an interest in the little spectacle. Pauline took instant notice of that one, so Alice looked elsewhere. She nudged Pauline and glanced at a red-haired man in a powder blue leisure suit.

Pauline tilted her head toward the bar. “He’s mine, so why don’t you start on that one, honey?” She acknowledged Alice’s choice. “He’s a regular, knows the score. Works in some kinda office around here. Good tipper, and he don’t ask for much. Made me suck him off once, bare, so I had to swallow it, but it was his birthday or something and he wanted to celebrate.”

With a little groan, Alice gathered up her satchel by its long silk cord, took her iced tea with her and glided over to the redhead. She let the satchel slide to the floor as she sat down in the chair opposite the man, dragged the cocktail straw out of her glass and flicked her tongue across the drop that clung to its tip. With full projection of her inner glow, she began.

“Hello, Red.” She did the hair thing.

He looked up at her with piggy eyes. A thousand freckles on his cheeks exploded into a shiny grin.

“Would you like to call me Alice? You’d make this country girl feel a lot less lonesome in such a big ol’ city.”

Piggy actually gulped. Three seconds later, he raised his hand and gestured toward the bar. Alice took a sip of her drink and momentarily directed her attention in the same direction. Pauline was already working the fairy down at the dark end. Ben was nodding toward Red. Sold. Well, that was easy. Alice giggled like a girl for a moment, then turned the full focus of her grown-up attention on her customer as he cleared his throat to speak.

“I got a room upstairs, Miss Alice, if you want to get friendly. Three-oh-four.”

Her wide-open eye contact and dewy smile could be worthy of a movie star when she was at her best, and she felt good about herself just then. “Well, you know something, Red? That is”–she took time to sweeten her smile–“a pleasurable prospect.”

Piggy wouldn’t last fifteen minutes.

With a sultry twist of her torso, Alice rose from her chair, paused, eased her satchel’s cord up over one shoulder and looked back to be sure Piggy was fully appreciating the effect of the plunge her slinky dress took in the back, way down past her waist. With graceful attention to detail, she walked right up to the bar, murmured “three-oh-four” to Ben and stood discretely to one side while the two gentlemen exchanged paper. When she glanced at the clock over the door, Ben did the same, which gave her a nice sense of security. Ten twenty. She checked the luminous dial on the watch pinned just inside her satchel and saw it was a few minutes fast. She’d have to adjust it before her next one.

Then Piggy was at her side, flattening a damp palm against the small of her back to guide her toward the heavy doors. Her repulsion darted behind a smile of perfect guilelessness and she asked, “We celebratin’ anything special tonight, Sugar?”

 

Film Noir

No underwear! Heavens. Miss Bette Davis’ buttocks shimmied freely under the thin yellow jersey as she crossed twenty-three steps from the elevator lobby to his room. He wondered what that felt like to her, if she even noticed. If going without drawers were more a matter of convenience than sensuality. Her brown ringlets would be stiff with lacquer, probably, it being a humid night. Too bad. He liked darting his fingers through their hair, feeling its curves, like the curves of their bodies and just as slippery. When they used hairspray, it threw the whole rhythm off.

She turned to watch him approach the door and open it for her. Her smile oozed greed. He reached for a wavy strand that stuck to her lip gloss on one side, and drew it away. It slid nice and smooth between his thumb and forefinger. Well, what about that? Afterwards, he’d have to apologize for doubting her good taste.

She preceded him into the room, turned, and watched him make for the bed. As he offered his hand, her eyes shifted to the display of items on the coverlet and widened.

“These are my toys, my dear. Do you think they’re odd?”

Her answer was all wrong.

 

Fade to Black

Second one wasn’t so bad. Tried to make her come, and actually had a little finesse, so she gave him a good show. Pauline was right about Red. Nice tip.

Alice came out of the ladies room and decided to take a different table, a little closer to the bar. Maybe what’s-his-name…uh…Ben…maybe he’d like to talk. Wouldn’t hurt to get cozier. The least he could do was thank her for the cigars.

When he made eye contact with her, though, it didn’t seem friendly. He jerked his head as if inviting her up to the bar, so she went, leaving her big bag on the chair before she’d even sat in it.

“Why’s, something wrong, Ben?”

“Pauline’s late. You mind the store while I go see what she’s up to.”

Oh Lord in Heaven. Not on the first night. “Aw, she’s probably just feeling poorly, taking her time. She wouldn’t just run off.”

“I know that. Maybe you ain’t heard there’s been girls attacked on this side of town. Five or six of ’em killed in the last couple of months, all the same way. I’m takin’ no chances.”

r “In this nice place? Come on. They musta been streetwalkers.”

“I dunno. I only look at the headlines.”

 

The Buck Stops Over There

Mildred patched the call straight through to the radio. “Guys, I think this is number seven on your hooker hit parade. Sorry.”

Hutch took the receiver, his expression of distaste at Mildred’s crude remark transforming almost instantly to one of eager attention. “Yes, yes, I’ve got it. Stay there. Touch nothing. Nothing!”

“Where we going?”

“Westland Hotel. Step on it.”

Hutch filled Starsky in on his brief conversation as they cut through late Friday night traffic en route to the once-chic neighborhood where the Westland Hotel had recently reopened its doors.

The lobby was busy with uniformed officers, various hotel staff all looking for direction, and a sweaty man dressed as if he’d been rousted from bed and had jumped into the first clothes at! ! hand to get there. Presumably the manager of the place.

Starsky and Hutch displayed their badges.

“I’m Barry Fitzgerald,” he said, pausing for the expected reaction that didn’t come. “I’m the new manager here. I just got here. It’s so terrible. I don’t know how such a horrible thing could have happened–”

“Mr. Fitzgerald,” Starsky said, in his most grounded tone of voice, “Was it you who found the body?”

“Oh no, no, I haven’t seen it. Oh, I don’t have to, do I?”

The wail of an ambulance cut into the fringes of the night somewhere several blocks away. It would be at the front door soon.

“Do they have to bring it down here? Out the front? There’s a back way–”

This time, Hutch cut the man short. “Where’s Ben?”

“Oh, yes, yes, Ben the Bartender. He’s…he’s in the bar.”

Starsky made a quick survey of the lobby and spotted the obvious place to head for. He took Fitzgerald’s elbow! ! and steered him toward it while Hutch flipped open his notebook and started asking questions.

“Are all your guests accounted for? Anyone missing? Except the dead girl, of course?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There are all kinds of policemen upstairs.” Fitzgerald wheeled around suddenly and called to a robust younger man in a maroon jacket with gold braid trim. “Harper? He’s Harper, the night manager. George Harper.”

Harper strode manfully to the small thicket of important people and stood as tall as he could in their midst. “Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald?”

Hutch took command. “Are all your guests accounted for? Anybody check out suddenly tonight?”

“I don’t know, sir. Not that I saw, anyway. Such a scandal, you know?”

Starsky’s reaction was lost in the sound of Hutch’s outburst.

“Somebody wake up all the staff and the good people registered in this hotel, and tell them the police have ordered you to ask if they saw anybody suspicious-looking lurking around or leaving the hotel earlier, and to call you right away if they see or hear anything unusual. Got that? Can you do that? Thank you.”

“But people will panic!” Fitzgerald said.

Hutch flipped his notebook shut. “Maybe they should.” He looked to Starsky for punctuation while Fitzgerald and Harper followed orders.

“Care for a drink?” Starsky asked, indicating the bar.

“Several, if you’re paying.”

Starsky went through the double doors first, holding one open for Hutch. It was obvious who they had to talk to. The bartender sat hunched over a table, drinking something from a glass he held in two shaking hands.

“Mr. Benjamin?” Starsky said. “We’re detectives.” He held out his badge.

“It’s Ben. Harry Benjamin, but they call me Ben. Oh, God.”

Hutch crouched next to the man and put a hand on his shoulder. “Can you tell us how it is that you found her?”

The bartender moaned into his drink. “Aw, she’s…was…you know..a working girl. Well all right, sure, I look the other way. But when they go off with a guy, and they’re not back when you’d think they probably would be, I get worried. I got worried.”

“So you got worried and went…where?”

“Room six forty.”

“How did you know she’d be there?”

“She told me. You know, so’s I’d know where to look if….”

“And you went right in and saw her there?”

“Door was wide open. She was…oh God!”

“All right, Mr. Benjamin. We’ll talk to you some more later. We need to check the room ourselves now.”

“Elevator to six, take a right. You’ll see all the policemen there and some other people. I don’t know who they all are.”

As Starsky removed the glass from the bartender’s grip–ginger ale–Hutch helped him to his feet.

“Starsky, can you get Fitzgerald or his buddy to direct the removal team to around back? I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

“Where’s the other girl, the new girl?” the bartender asked, looking around.

Starsky and Hutch looked at each other, sharing a chilling thought. Hutch asked quietly, “Is another girl missing, Ben?”

“No, not missing, she just went to the head. She–”

A thump at the door to the ladies’ room alerted all three men to a new presence in the room. A willowy blonde girl in evening dress. She wore no makeup and appeared to have been crying. A damp rag dangled from her right hand.

Hutch released a soft sigh. Alice.

If she recognized the detectives flanking Ben the Bartender, she didn’t show it. She squeezed herself between them and Ben, folding the bar towel into a pad to press against Ben’s forehead.

“He’s had a terrible shock. He tell you what happened?”

“We have to go see.”

“I guess you do.”

“Is there anything you can tell us, Alice?”

Ben reached for Alice’s hand. “You know these men?”

Alice patted Ben’s rag and hitched the strap of her heavy bag higher on one of her shoulders. “Yes, Ben. They’re very fine police officers. I’m sure they were about to tell you how they knew all about so many girls like Pauline being murdered recently. You said yourself it was all over the news. I guess they had more important crimes to solve.”

“Alice,” Hutch said, so quietly it almost didn’t come out.

“We were friends, Pauline and me. All I know is last time I saw her, she was talking to a man at the bar. I thought he was a pansy, you know, a limp-wrist? But Ben says he went right up with her. Last time I saw her.”

Ben nodded.

Starsky spoke up. “Anybody got a name for this mysterious customer?”

“Ask Mr. America over there,” Ben said, directing Starsky to George Harper, the night manager, who had come through the doors and was posing against backlight from the lobby, like a poor man’s! ! John Travolta.

“The name on the register for the room where the girl’s body is in, is ‘Jack Davis.’ That’s probably not his real name, though. Like ‘John Doe,’ you know?”

Silence greeted this assessment. He spoke next with more dignity in his voice.

“So, do you wanna come and see it, or not?”

This is going to be a long fucking night, thought Starsky, at roughly the same time the same thing occurred to Hutch. At least they both knew what to expect, since Hutch had made his trip to the morgue that afternoon.

“He was a travel agent,” Ben said, suddenly. “He said he booked travel. ‘Exotic trips. To give people a different perspective.’ He said that. He ordered Courvoisier. Didn’t drink any. Never touched the glass. No fingerprints.”

Starsky stared at the man, surprised by his sudden lucidity. “Good. That’s very good information, Ben. Anything else? Like, could you describe him?”

Ben nodded vigorously.

Hutch patted himself down for a pencil. “Uh, Ben? Would you come to the police station and work with a sketch artist?”

Starsky was aware that Alice had drifted off. When he tried to catch sight of her, she was gone. No matter. He was sure she’d told the truth. She’d told them all she knew.

“Starsk? You got a pencil?”

“Try the registration desk. Let’s go upstairs and get it over with.”

Ben cringed. “Do I have to go up there again? I can’t. That poor girl–”

“It’s all right, Mr. Benjamin,” Hutch said, as he and Starsky steered the rumpled man toward the double doors. “We’ll have one of the officers drive you down to Metro and make sure you’re taken care of. You need to make any phone calls? Anybody expecting you at home?”

“Yeah, my wife. I told her I’d be late. She’s waitin’ up for me.”

“Nice lady,” Starsky muttered. He wondered if she knew how her hubby always came up with such impressive birthday presents for the grandchildren on a low-rent bartender’s earnings.

 

You Oughta Be in Pictures

The sketch was a hit everywhere they showed it: every scene of every related prostitute murder of the past two months. It took no more than two days to confirm that whoever Bartender Ben and the police sketch artist had captured on paper was the prime suspect in the semi-ritual slaying of at least six of the women. A serial killer who called himself Jack Davis everywhere he signed in. Incredibly, everyone who identified him mentioned how well-dressed he was, what a gentleman, such nice manners: with a dead prostitute left behind in every room he’d never paid for.

“Go figure,” Starsky kept saying.

Hutch advanced the subtly disguised unemployed actor connection, but that didn’t pan out. None of the talent agencies had glossies that matched the sketch, but a receptionist at one of the places played Lady Luck for them.

“This looks like…wow. Well, you know, I did a few scenes at MGM during the strikes.” She smiled before realizing that wouldn’t play well. “I had to do seven takes because of this guy Not that I minded. Got more money.”

“An actor?” Hutch asked, with triumph in his tone of voice.

“No no. Script, oh what do they call it, when you got your hair in the wrong place or something? Continuity.”

Which is how they got lucky.

Taking a Hollywood detour from Studio A to Studio Z led them to the industrial rear end of a small production company. Outside, rows of huge lighting instruments and stacks of coiled cable covered what seemed to serve other times as a parking lot. A small man in a blue work shirt and jeans squinted through his own cigarette smoke to inspect tags on one item after another and scribble something on a clipboard.

After perfunctory introductions and an explanation of the reason for their call, Starsky produced the sketch while Hutch watched the man’s reaction.

Chick Anderson scratched at the fringe of gray hair surrounding his sunburned bald spot. “Shit on a shingle! Excuse me, fellas. Holy cow.”

While Starsky and Hutch impatiently allowed him to study the sketch again from different angles, he bent over, stubbed out his cigarette in a bucket of sand and field-stripped the butt, all in one smooth move. “This is sure Jack Davis. Oh, yeah. Serial murderer? Holy cow.”

“Would you happen to know where we could find Jack Davis now?”

“Hutch, this whole thing is too easy.”

“I don’t care. Mr. Anderson, what about this man, Jack Davis? How do you know him?”

“Oh, he used to work continuity at the old studio up ’til about the strikes. He did some freelance here last season. Real pain in the ass. Acted like he pissed perfume. Excuse me. Nobody missed him when he quit or got canned or whatever it was. Nobody knew which. We were all lookin’ for work pretty soon after. I was lucky to get this gig at my age.”

“And where is he now, Mr. Anderson?”

“Still lives with his mother, probably, if she’s still alive.” Anderson looked up from the sketch and shook his head rapidly, “No, I mean, he’s no kid, so I guess she’s pretty old. Old Lizzie. She was a bit player at RKO back in the day. Might’ve passed on by now.”

Hutch leaned down into Anderson’s face. “And where did she used to live, Mr. Anderson?”

“Oh, Jeez, I got no idea. Sorry, fellas.”

“Where’d he work last?” Starsky asked.

“Like I said, Metro, then here for a few days. I dunno.”

Starsky gave him a knowing wink. “Never run into him at the shop? Union hall?”

“Union hall?”

Hutch stared at Starsky, one eyebrow cocked.

“They give out word on who’s hiring at the union halls,” Starsky explained.

Anderson chuckled. “In the movies, maybe. IATSE’s a huge union, different guilds, locals all over.”

Starsky persisted. “Was Davis a union man?”

Anderson answered by pulling out a fresh cigarette and nodding a little crisply to Starsky. “Yep. Woulda been in 871 with the Script Supervisors.” He shook his head sadly over the sketch. “Looks like he might’ve let his card lapse, though.”

Hutch forced himself to keep quiet and let Starsky pry Anderson’s lid open a little more.

“But could he be drawing Pension and Welfare now?”! !

“Health. Yeah, could be. The local can tell you who keeps all the member contact info on their plans. That’s way up on Chandler near… wait a minute.” Anderson slipped the sketch back into its envelope and handed it to Starsky. “I’ll get the number for you.”

While Anderson disappeared into his shop, Hutch vented his frustration.

“I’m telling you, Starsk, this is too easy!”

Starsky folded the flap down on the envelope and was securing the clasp when one of the prongs snapped and fell to the pavement. “What, you want it to be hard?”

“I wouldn’t mind a convenient excuse to blow the motherfucker away.”

“Now, see, that’s what’d be too easy. Taking him in and making sure they bury him alive under a shitload of law: that’s hard.”

Chick Anderson came back outside with a small book. He read out the number at the tip of his finger. “Give ’em a call. They should get you going. Good luck, fellas.” He winked at Starsky. “Sorry to know a union brother is giving the city such a hard time. Most of us live to make people happy, you know?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said dryly to Anderson’s retreating back.

As Starsky waved good-bye, Hutch intercepted his raised arm, twisted him around toward the Torino and gave him a little shove.

“Come on, Brother Starsky. Let’s go look for the union label.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“You’re lucky. Could’ve sung it.”

Starsky’s reaction was lost to Hutch as he got into the passenger seat. Starsky took the wheel, started the engine and pulled straight out into traffic. When they were at cruising speed, he said, “Let’s think! ! what all these hotels have in common.”

e We did this last night, Starsk. All venerable old Hollywood institutions. Stands to reason a guy in the movie business would be attracted to them.”

“Yeah, but look at all the girls he did in. All on the short side, skinny but, you know, chesty. Curly dark hair. Big brown eyes.”

“Except for the Stafford Arms girl. No way to tell there.”

Starsky had to jerk the wheel back toward Hutch to keep from clipping a Dodge Dart in the next lane. He sucked in a breath and checked the rear-view mirror. “Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

Hutch decided the rest of their speculation could wait until they were at their desks. He looked out the window at all the gray and the beige streaking past, dull scenery littered with people he hoped he would never know, because the way he was getting to know people lately was nothing but misery. What side of what scale needed adjusting to even that one out? He reached for Starsky’s thigh to make the only connection that seemed worth making anymore.

 

The Uninvited

“Gimmie that, Hutch. Here. When Dobey sees this, he’s gonna have to let us nail the creep. Screw the forty-eight hours. I swear Moorehead made that up to cover his own ass.”

Hutch watched Starsky arrange the impressive file of evidence they had collected on Jack Davis’s whereabouts and behavior for the past year, almost every move tied directly to a killing with his M.O. all over it.

Hutch got up too fast, wincing as the stiffness in his back kicked in. He yanked at his shoulder holster and pretended to ignore the pain that shot through his hand where he’d cut it the morning of the Pedersen hostage standoff.

Starsky tried not to overreact. “Looks bad, Hutch. Maybe we shoulda got a tetanus shot.”

“Hell, no! Let some sadistic intern jab a needle in my keister? When they let some pretty nurse do it, maybe.”

Starsky glanced at his watch and frowned. “You ready?”

“After you, Ollie.”

With Hutch beside him, Starsky went confidently to Dobey’s office door and pounded on it. “It’s urgent, Captain. You in there?”

A dark sound from within struck both Starsky and Hutch as license enough to enter.

Dobey, standing at his window, turned to face his men. He looked ashen, tired, old.

Starsky spoke first, keeping his voice calmer than he felt, out of respect for the pressure his boss was under. “We got full paper on him, Captain. Every word vibes homicide, one for every day of the week, at least. We got him.”

Starsky laid the thick file on Dobey’s desk. He and Hutch stood their ground, waiting for their superior’s reaction.

“There’s no reason for Moorehead to withhold a warrant this time, Captain!” Hutch pulled a photo out of the file and held it up to Dobey. “He can’t let this happen again!”

Dobey scowled. “I don’t appreciate theatrics, Hutchinson. Don’t try to shock me into a decision I have to make based on the law, and what will or won’t hold up in court.”

“Davis is one cold, crazy motherfucker, Captain. No tellin’ how quick he’ll take his next victim down. Could be tonight. Could be right now as we stand here talking about it.”

“Maybe.”

“Cap’n, it’ll be forty-eight hours in a little under two. You want to get technical, or let me and Hutch loose on this right now?”

Harold Dobey’s gut screamed but he stood still until the weight of authority settled on him and he could hear himself still agreeing with his best men. “Get goin’. I’ll take care of Moorehead.”

 

There’s No Place Like Home

For the first time in his post-Miranda career, Starsky got the whole spiel out. There was no joy in the achievement for him at all. When he was done, he walked away from the suspect to let the uniformed officers complete the arrest. He even took his time restoring the card to its place under his badge.

Hutch reached out to him. Just as his hand made contact, Davis screamed and they both spun around, ready to draw their weapons again.

“You can’t take me away in that filthy thing! I heard my rights!” Davis twisted in his cuffs and shackles as five officers maneuvered him toward a waiting police transport vehicle.

“Oh, Christ,” Starsky said. He picked up his badge wallet and took Hutch by the arm. “Come on, Hutch. Get me out of here before I do something he’ll regret.”

But Hutch jerked away from Starsky’s grip and stepped slowly toward Davis, his arms open wide, palms forward to reassure the other cops he had it together. The officers holding Davis dug in. They wanted this moment, too. Davis pulled at his restraints and panted from the effort.

Hutch got close enough to Davis’s face to smell his mouthwash. “This is how it is, scum.” He spat out each word with chilling menace; Davis cringed into his skin. “My partner and I found a four-year-old kid in his bedroom closet two weeks ago, murdered by his own father. The kid’s mother wasted him to save us the trouble of having to respect his rights. Blew her own brains out before we could thank her properly. So here’s how we feel about your fucking rights, asshole. The right you deserve is the right to spend the rest of your fucking life in such misery you’ll beg to die like you did all those girls. I promise I will do everything legally within my power to make that nightmare come true for you. Do you understand that right as I have explained it to you?”

Davis nervously worked his mouth, trying to articulate his rage. “Did you all hear that? That’s abuse, that’s–threats! He threatened me! And I want my lawyer now! A good one. Get me Claude–” The rest of his tirade played out behind the steel doors of the transport van.

The wagon bearing Jack Davis to his doom, whatever that might be, took off slowly down the alley behind the Westland Hotel and out onto Sunset. The few unofficial witnesses on the periphery of the last interesting act in the Jack Davis drama returned to their lives. So now, it was all over but the testimony–and how many years down the road would that be?

Hutch was trembling. Starsky put a hand on his back and felt the muscles underneath twitch, almost as if Hutch were about to spin around and deck him. Which he might. “Come on, babe, let’s go. Man’s a psycho.”

“Oh, Jesus! Aren’t they all? What, we’re supposed to hand them all first-class tickets to the Ocean View Retreat for Homicidal Maniacs?”

“Yeah, babe. Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do. But right now, I just want to go home and clean this bust off in a long hot shower, and then think about what I’d rather be doing this time next year. You with me?”

The answer, because it had come to mean everything to both of them, was always yes.

 

Goodness Had Nothin’ To Do With It

Alice stood in the Westland lobby, watching the last of the cops clear out without having the decency to offer her a lift. The free room and board had been fine, but now that her bit part in catching Jack Davis was over, she was tired of Ben and of putting up with his sorry excuses. The whole place only reminded her of Pauline and death. She was anxious to get home and start making some money again. And a change of clothes wouldn’t hurt.

The one cop they’d left manning the scene–his name tag said “Collins”–seemed nice enough in his crisp black uniform. She tugged at the hem of her shorts, smiled at him and walked out the front doors into the daylight. She pulled a dog biscuit out of her satchel for insurance in case of hungry mutts and began the long walk home. Wished she’d brought her Bain de Soleil.

Halfway down the first block, she was already thinking what shoes she could wear that night at the Neptune that wouldn’t rub too bad on a heel blister. Keds always gave her heel blisters.

Handsome Hutch, she thought. Pretty impressive back there, she had to admit. Nice to see him show some guts like that for a change. Didn’t know he had it in him. She guessed she should have known. Now wouldn’t it be funny if–? Oh no, no, no you just stop that now, Karen-Louise. Just stop it now.

Stop it now. Stop it now. Stop it now.

Every step, all the way home.

 

Time Is Just One Damn Thing After Another

The funeral was a small affair. There was no body; it had been cremated after the autopsy. Not many mourners and the chapel was cold. Nice flowers, though. After the short service, Alice was touching some of them when Hutch came to her side.

“We’re sorry, Alice. We know she was your friend. Is there anything we can do? Take you home? Stay with you a while?” Hutch took the shivering Alice in his arms and laid a comforting hand on the back of her head.

Alice stood stock-still for a moment but then pulled away. She stared at Hutch with eyes much harder than even Starsky would have believed possible. “You’re mighty generous with your shiny gold coins now the collection plate’s gone past.”

All right, that’s it. Starsky spoke up before she could piss on Hutch’s compassion any more. “Be fair, Alice. We caught the bastard. We broke all the rules to do it, because we knew he was going to kill again. We couldn’t save Pauline, but I know we saved other girls down the line. Maybe even you.”

“Starsk, let me.”

Hutch turned back to Alice, silently asking permission to place his hands on each of her thin shoulders. He spoke softly. “I know what you think. You said it that night, that we had more important work. You’re wrong, Alice. It doesn’t matter to us that his victims were prostitutes. We wanted him for Pauline’s murder as much as if she’d been our sister. Or you.” He touched her hair.! ! Twice. “We got him, Alice. And he will pay now. I promise.”

r She remembered overhearing the bitter promise he’d made to Davis and gave him credit for honoring a deal. But she leaned back, not quite out of Hutch’s reach, but placing more than mere distance between them. She went into a cynical inversion of her coy Sweet Alice song and dance. “My, my. Seems you live in a fantasy world, Handsome Hutch. All about justice and how things ought to work in this world. Well, I know more ‘n a little something about fantasies. Difference between us is I know they’re just pretty lies, and I know when it’s time to stop telling ’em.”

“Alice….”

“If you think that’s sad or cruel, then you look out. You might be just as loony as that Davis.”

“Please…Alice….”

“Don’t you worry about me, darlin’. You just worry about yourself, hm?”

Alice spotted Ben the bartender in the back of the chapel and turned to go.

The reflection of her betrayal in Hutch’s eyes would be on Starsky’s mind through every shift until the end of the week.

 

Make It Better

“Why?”

“Told you. Just felt like it.” Starsky took a long swig from the beer bottle and went back to the magazine.

“That’s not enough.” Hutch read through the lowered eyelids and the eyelashes and the shadows and came up with secrets. He took the magazine out of Starsky’s hands and set it carefully down beside the cherubs. “You’re keeping something from me, buddy. Never did that before.”

“How do you know?”

“Not about anything important. And this is important or you’d be blabbing about it ’til I begged you to shut the fuck up.” Next, he took away the bottle. “Give.”

“Let it go, Hutch.”

It scared him when Starsky got that look. It was never good news for the bad guys and it probably wasn’t going to be good news for him now. “Starsk?”

“I said leave it alone.”

Hutch considered that. “No.”

Starsky sat up, leaned forward, reached out. Hutch risked closing his eyes and felt warm fingers on the side of his throat, then a whole hand. When he opened his eyes, dreading what he’d see in spite of the touch, he saw that the deadly look on Starsky’s face had transformed into something almost sad, almost an apology.

“Starsk?” he whispered. “What?” He was prepared to be patient.

“Been thinking.”

Except for that. “Dangerous.”

“I know. But hear me out. I was thinking, when you were taking that crap from Alice–”

“She was hurting, Starsky. Give her a break!”

“When are you ever gonna give yourself a break, Hutch? Huh?”

Oh Christ.

“When are you gonna let yourself love somebody who loves you back like you deserve, instead of taking everything you have to give, and trashing it?”

“Oh come off it, Starsky!”

“I’m serious here. I’m tired of seeing you give and give and get nothing back but trouble and pain.”

“Oh. You got a better track record I should be looking to beat, buddy?”

“Unfair.”

“Is it?”

Starsky grabbed his left wrist. It hurt but Hutch said nothing. “I got nothing but your best interest at heart. You know that. You trust me with everything, right?”

The hurt made some sense. He nodded.

“Then trust me now. I love you, Hutch.”

Starsky’s grip turned softer. More like holding hands. A sweeter kind of hurt.

“You know, after, I mean after I…gave you that smooch the other night, well, what you said? That it was nice I trusted you that much?”

Hutch smiled cautiously, and inclined his head in half a nod.

Starsky shifted his position, squaring his shoulders a little. “We trust each other, right?”

“You know that. Absolutely.”

“Okay. Just suppose, if you ever wanted to, let’s say, do that to me? Would you trust me that much to let you? Do it? If you did–want to, I mean?”

Hutch almost couldn’t keep the laugh, or whatever it was, stuffed inside. “You want to run that by me again?”

“No,” Starsky said. “I want you to kiss me. Like I mean something to you. Like I won’t throw it back at you like it was worth nothing.” Starsky’s crooked smile paused momentarily at shy before broadening into smart-ass. “Now see, there’s a lesson for you, Officer Hutchinson. Don’t ask questions you really don’t want answered.”

But he hadn’t moved the hand from the side of his throat, and it felt so good.

The heat that raced from Hutch’s gut to his cheeks was on its way to his lips before he could think of what to do, and even then, it made no sense. So obviously, thinking wasn’t going to work.

 

Aw Buddy, I Know Just How You Feel

It was easy, so easy. At every point of connection, man to man, touching Starsky’s body this way felt like touching himself, only amplified.

Hutch had known it would be like that, but he hadn’t expected it to flow so easily. He knew a tantrika who could make something similar happen on a good night, and that was wild, but this was even wilder. Every kiss, every stroke, all the sweet ache of wanting, was more intimate and pleasurable than any kind of sex he’d ever experienced before. No need to ask himself why. He knew, just as a man dying of thirst in the desert knows why he wants water.

“You’re sure you want this, Starsk? You have to be sure.”

The answering kiss was surprisingly soft, tender, going nowhere and not fast. Time stopped for Hutch while Starsky’s tongue lit fire to the nerves just inside his lips, then slid deeper to test his courage–and maybe, Hutch thought, to tease him into showing some more of it. So he did.

God, it felt like giving in to some kind of dreamy jungle fever, pulling away each piece of clothing until they were both naked. Hutch finally stretched his long blond body and fit it all along Starsky’s darkness, like a vine clinging to the trunk of a tree, feeling the rough texture of hair against his own flushed skin, then Starsky’s bare cock arching against his, the hardness, the giving, and especially, the taking.

He loved the texture of the skin where there was no hair, where defined ribs made waves under his hands as they skimmed over them, where veins flowed over well-toned biceps. He could almost feel the blood rushing through them. He let himself memorize Starsky’s waist and hips, the hard curves of his ass, the flat nipples that responded so fast to the slightest disturbance of the hair that swirled around them, and that tasted so rich. The damn fine cock, thicker than he’d guessed, swollen to the limit so he didn’t dare this time, but soon, another time soon, he would lick it, pull it into his mouth and suck. He paid special attention to the small bare space just behind Starsky’s balls that pulsed when he stroked and rubbed him deeply. How fucking good he smelled. How exciting it was to say things that made a tough cop moan with pleasure.

He could do it all night: graze lovingly over every part of Starsky’s body until he knew it felt like sex to him everywhere it was touched, and where it really was sex, like ecstasy almost beyond enduring. Girls often told him he did that for them, afterwards in case he’d gotten distracted and missed the show, as guys sometimes will.

He was missing no part of this show. And unlike most of those girls, Starsky gave every bit as good as he got.

Starsky’s sexuality had a controlled, scary intensity. He hadn’t expected that. His touch was confident and deliberate, every movement of his hard, hot body calculated to build desire but withhold its fulfillment. Something deep within Hutch’s body reacted to the sensual assault as if it were a threat against his life, like a sustained adrenaline high that was painfully erotic. Starsky’s hand gripping his cock, pulling at the root, pumping it full, bringing him to the screaming edge, and then no. Then no again. Still no. And then his voice warm against his ear, softly saying how goddamn much he loved him, and finally the long, deep strokes that said, “Come for me now babe, come on, come.” That was what drove him through the last invisible barrier he hadn’t even known existed between them. Made him believe there had never really been two of them at all.

Afterward, it crossed Hutch’s mind that Starsky maybe did the same thing for his girls that he’d just experienced; he’d heard a few reports, and of course they’d seen each other in action that time with Molly and Gisele. That was hot. But this: Jesus, this. This was something else they could say they had in common, but to no one else: knowing how they looked writhing through what seemed like a night-long orgasm, given to each other alone. Fair enough thing to know about a guy you’d trust with your life.

After things had cooled down enough, Hutch couldn’t resist saying something that had popped into his mind. “Hey Starsk, guess what? We’ve always watched each other’s backs. Now we can watch each other’s fronts, too.”

Starsky grimaced into his pillow and said nothing, but his shoulders shook, so Hutch was satisfied that it was, overall, pretty funny.

“Starsk?”

A muffled “Yeah” eventually made it out.

He spread a hand over Starsky’s hair and tugged it gently. “Hey babe,” he said softly, “you know what else?” He urged Starsky to turn over.

“I know everything else. Wanna see?” And Starsky showed him.

The End