The Bay City and Beyond Affair

Author’s Note: This was written for the Starsky & Hutch Present Tense challenge. The challenge was to write a story with the guys and the Bay City setting but moved into the current modern world. I didn’t make the word count and the deadline went whooshing by ages ago, but there are some awesome perks to knowing the mod. Thanks to Flamingo for putting up with me. Thanks also to the wonderful m. butterfly for her detailed beta work and excellent suggestions. Any remaining errors are entirely my own.

Do not try to reconcile the timelines, for that way lies madness, and it will only make spacetime even more wibbly wobbly than it already is. Likewise, all locations are relative in this case. Just accept that in a fictional universe, anything is possible. Especially before breakfast. A list of the TV shows and movies mentioned is at the end.

Originally published in the zine, The Bay City Gazette in 2014.

Captain Dobey walked into his office and without even glancing in his direction said, “Starsky, get your feet off my desk.”

With a grin, Starsky complied. “You wanted to see us, Captain. What’s up?”

Hutch opened his eyes but kept leaning against the wall next to the door.

“Email from Lestrade,” Dobey answered, as he sat at his now feet-free desk and shook the mouse to wake up his computer. He turned the screen so they all could see and continued, “This is Kate Moreau, known con artist. Scotland Yard had her and her accomplice, Neal Caffrey, in custody but they escaped yesterday. According to Sherlock Holmes—he’s some kind of a consultant for them—Caffrey is heading to Majorca, based on the paint he used on his last job or something like that. I don’t even want to know how Holmes figured that out but they think Moreau is heading here. CI5 won’t touch it since there’s no indication that any terrorist groups are involved, and they can’t do anything on US soil anyway. Steed and Peel are tied up in Algiers.”

“Literally, knowing them,” Hutch said. Starsky snorted and Dobey glared.

“Anyway, Moreau’s got contacts in Bay City and apparently is here looking for a tribal mask that may or may not be authentic but which was stolen from her.”

“Our con artist got conned?” Starsky asked.

Dobey grimaced and said, “It must be worth a lot to her. She’s got warrants out here too for fraud. Lestrade says we’re on our own. They’re dealing with a string of serial suicides.”

“I’ll take forgeries any day over that,” Hutch said, and Starsky nodded in agreement.

“I’ll call Hetty, see if NCIS has anything new. I hate that damn satellite phone, though. Never get a good connection. I know Moreau’s on their radar screen ever since last year when that admiral got caught up with that fake oil painting of Washington.” Dobey loosened his tie. “FBI White Collar got as far as London and backed off after the arrest. Half the agents here got called out to Vegas to deal with the Bellagio crew. They’re afraid Ocean’s crew has more hits planned, and it’s apparently budget season for the rest. So we’re it for now.”

In the meantime, Hutch had pulled out his tablet and connected to the department’s database. “I knew that name sounded familiar. Moreau. Came up as part of the Harrison deposition. Owns Gold and Silver over on Vegas Boulevard. Never had enough to make it to trial. They followed all of the reporting standards. Found a few stolen items but wasn’t the shop’s fault.”

“That’s right,” Starsky agreed. “Rumor was that she was dating the son for a while. Maybe he’s got an idea of where she landed.”

“Go check it out and see if it takes you anywhere,” Dobey told them.

“Yeah, but I want to stop by Huggy’s first. He says he’s got a new toy for us,” Starsky said and Hutch grinned. Huggy always found the coolest things. Dobey waved them out of his office as he reached for the phone.

Huggy’s place was a one-stop shop for all of your telecommunications needs, some more legitimate than others. The Pit Stop looked like a typical storefront cell phone store selling phones, tablets, cases, and a vast variety of other accessories that Hutch swore wound up costing you more than the phone itself. Starsky didn’t care, as long as whatever he bought was red.

Not only could Huggy hook you up with any provider or sell you a virtually untraceable prepaid plan, he was a tech wiz with the phones themselves, able to take them apart and put them back together almost better than new. Both Starsky and Hutch had had him repair many a smartphone screen that had been damaged from being dropped during a chase. Current count was Hutch 4, Starsky 3, although Hutch claimed that the first one of his was Starsky’s fault, seeing as he made Hutch drop it when he kissed Hutch for the first time.

Huggy might operate slightly on the grey side of the law but he was a wonderful conduit to the streets, passing info to Starsky and Hutch. They knew better than to ask about his sources but were still able to help most of the people Huggy brought to them.

“What’s the Wizard got for us today?” Starsky asked.

“You guys are gonna love this. Remember how you were saying you wished you could just connect to someone’s phone? One of my cousins has a way to do that now, and your target won’t even know.”

“Is that Hacker Brown?” Hutch asked jokingly. Huggy had a slew of cousins and he’d long since given up on keeping them all straight.

“Naw, the Browns are my Mom’s side of the family. Hardison is on my Dad’s. He figured out a way to clone a phone, but you gotta get kinda close for it to work.” Huggy passed the Samsung Galaxy Note phone he’d been tinkering with over to Starsky. “Take a look at this.”

“Hey, that’s my contact list. How the hell did you get that?” Starsky exclaimed.

Hutch leaned over his shoulder to read the screen. “Who’s Sweet Cheeks and should I be worried?” he teased.

“Remember the pet store robbery a few months back? This was the owner’s daughter. She insisted on putting it in there. Didn’t want to disappoint her and I never got around to deleting it.”

“You mean you don’t know how to delete it.”

“That, too,” Starsky admitted with a grin.

“Gimme,” Huggy said and, in two taps, deleted the contact. “Now pay attention. The important thing here is that if you get this phone close enough to your target—and, unfortunately, close enough right now is about three feet—you can clone the phone. There’s an app for it. All you have to do is tap to run it. Takes about 40 seconds. How you get close enough to the target for that long is your dudes’ problem.”

“This is amazing. Thanks, Hug. We owe you one,” Hutch said.

“You owe me so many that I’ve lost track.” But Huggy was smiling the way they knew meant that he was just happy his new toy worked. “Don’t lose it. And don’t even think about submitting it as evidence.”

“We know, Huggy. This is more like CIA kinda stuff, so we’ll keep it covert,” Starsky said with a grin.

Hutch knew there was a little boy in there somewhere who still loved to play secret agent.

“I knew a guy in Miami who used to be a spy,” Huggy told them. “Got a girlfriend who likes to blow things up.”

“Glad that’s out of our jurisdiction, too,” Hutch said.

“So, if we can’t use it for evidence, what can we do with it?” Starsky was eager to try it out.

“Let’s go find Harrison Junior and see what’s on his phone,” Hutch suggested.

“Somehow I don’t think he’s going to have Kate’s phone number on there as his most recent call. But if we’re really lucky, it will lead us to someone who does,” Starsky agreed.

***

“So we’re just going to walk in there and do what, exactly?” Hutch asked, but Starsky was already on the move. He was leaning in between the front seats of Hutch’s tan 1996 Geo Prizm, rummaging around in the back, and Hutch was definitely not looking at his ass and getting ideas. Except that he was and now it was allowed, so that was alright then. And then Starsky wiggled his ass suggestively and Hutch knew that Starsky knew Hutch was looking and that was okay because it was a magnificent ass. But he absolutely, positively wasn’t going to touch it. Not on duty anyway. Even if the temptation was killing him.

“Gotta be something in this disaster area of a car we can try to pawn.” He dug out a Black Widow 7-11 slurpee cup and a Denny’s take-out box with a picture of Bilbo on it and tossed them to the side.

“A-ha,” he exclaimed, pulling out a sealed box. “Why do you have a mint condition copy of the home version of Match Game?” He flipped it over to read the back. “From 1976?”

“Found it last time I moved. I was going to drop it off during the next toy drive.”

“Hutch, we moved in together two years ago.”

***

Standing behind the counter of the World Famous Gold and Silver Pawn Shop, Corey looked at the box dubiously as Starsky slid it across to him. “So how much you want for it?” he asked, not sounding terribly interested.

Hutch heard his partner reply five hundred bucks, and how Starsky did that with a straight face was beyond him. Hutch was trying not to lose it, leaning on the case next to him with Huggy’s special phone in his hand.

Corey’s counter offer was ten dollars.

“Ten bucks? You gotta be kidding me,” Starsky protested. “It’s in mint condition. Three hundred.”

“Mint condition is about all it’s got going for it and that’s not saying much. Doesn’t matter anyway. Only reason I’m offering you that much is it’ll be fun to see Chumlee and the Old Man figuring out how to play it. Ten bucks.”

“Two hundred,” Starsky said with a wink and a smile that worked on Hutch more often than he cared to admit—and on a fair number of other people, too. Even so, it was clear he was barking up the wrong tree here.

“You’re tenacious, I’ll give you that, but all I’m offering is ten bucks,” Corey said again laughing. “Can’t go any more than that or I’ll be out of a job, partner in the shop or not.”

Hutch nudged Starsky to let him know the phone clone was complete but Starsky went ahead and asked for a hundred bucks anyway.

“Ten bucks, last time,” Corey said, and they shook on it. “Come on, let’s go write it up. Pawning or selling?”

“Selling,” Starsky answered quickly, completely ignoring Hutch’s “hey” of objection.

Outside in the bright sun, Hutch put on his sunglasses and asked, “You’re going to buy me coffee with that ten bucks, right?”

“That barely covers that fancy tea with all the fixings of yours,” Starsky said, but they headed to the nearest Starbucks to recaffeinate and check out the phone.

***

They settled at a table near the back, Hutch with his Chai with soy milk and Starsky with a mocha containing two shots of espresso. Starsky started to scroll through the recent calls list on the cloned phone. Hutch was on his own phone with Minnie to check the department’s database. In theory they could remote in but it never seemed to work. Maybe they should get Huggy to hack that for them.

“Okay, the last two calls were to Rick’s Restorations and Count’s Kustoms,” Starsky said. Hutch suspected they were both clean and Minnie confirmed it.

“Merle said Danny tried to hire him again but he’d rather keep his own garage,” Starsky said.

“He should see if he can get some subcontracting work with them. Merle’s designs are crazy enough to fit right in,” Hutch replied. “What else you got?”

“Next is Harcourt F. Mudd Import Export.”

“Minnie says Mudd’s doing four to six for selling stolen goods and the business is shut,” Hutch told him. “Might be something, then, if he’s calling a convicted felon. But I have no idea what.”

“Oh, wait,” Starsky said. “That call was only two seconds and the next was to Harry’s Pizza. Probably a misdial, then. I do that all the time.”

“Fat fingers?” Hutch said with a laugh.

“I have very talented fingers,” Starsky protested.

Hutch smiled but certainly wasn’t about to argue. On the phone, Minnie just said, “That’s more than I needed to know. Anything else? I got a stack of requests to get to and lunch would be nice, too.”

“We’ll buy next time,” Hutch promised.

Starsky quickly scrolled some more. “Chumlee, Chumlee, Chumlee, Old Man, Chumlee, Harry’s again, Chumlee.” Starsky and Hutch knew the pawn shop well. Chumlee was an employee and the Old Man, aka Richard Harrison Senior, was one of the owners. “And that takes us back to two days ago and she was still in jail then. So that was a bust.”

“Yeah, but we got to play with Huggy’s new toy.”

“There’s that,” Starsky agreed.

Hutch hung up with Minnie. “Now what?”

“Call Dobey, I guess,” Starsky said, picking up his cell to report that they’d struck out as they headed to the car. Starsky tipped the phone toward him so Hutch could hear as they walked.

“NCIS had nothing. Or at least nothing they were willing to share. I never can quite tell with Hetty. You two better figure this out before SHIELD shows up. I don’t want to find out this has anything to do with that whole Mayan thing from a few months back.”

Hutch added quietly so Dobey couldn’t hear, “Or before her number shows up in that crazy guy’s machine. I hate it when that happens.”

Starsky nodded in agreement as Dobey continued. “Sandburg’s in Peru again but I left a message for Chin Ho just in case he knows anything about the mask. I know it’s not Hawaiian but they’ve had a few cases of stolen artifacts like this as well. Heard back from Holt over at the 99th in New York too. Not his jurisdiction but the guy’s got a way of just knowing things. He said that Wojciehowicz from the 12th said to check out Marion Ravenwood. She closed up shop in NY real sudden and nobody’s quite sure why. She had a ton of inventory to ship and she paid a lot to get out of the lease. She just opened an antiquities store on 18th, so go and check it out.”

“Your wish is our command, Captain,” Starsky said as he disconnected.

***

They lucked out with traffic and it didn’t take long to get over to the shop. It clearly wasn’t open for business yet, with a temporary sign in the window that said “Coming Soon” and no obvious signs of movement from within. Clearly bored, Starsky started to complain about being seen in Hutch’s rust bucket of a car.

“First of all, there’s no one here to see us,” Hutch said, gesturing at the empty street. “And at least mine runs. This is—what? The third time this month the Easter Egg’s been in the shop?” Starsky’s car was a bright yellow 2012 Camero that was awesome when it was running well enough to actually be driven.

“Yeah, but at least it’s got style.”

After an hour-long stakeout with no movement in the store, and the few pedestrians on the street walking on by without looking up from their cell phones, Hutch was about done. “One of us should go and check it out.”

Starsky said, “I’ll flip you for it.”

“Okay but we’re using my coin,” Hutch said, digging in the console between the seats for change, moving aside the soda cups and Starsky’s candy wrappers in the process.

“You don’t trust your own partner?”

“With my life, yes. To not rig a coin toss when I know you don’t want to go out in that heat any more than I do? Not so much,” Hutch told him.

Starsky pouted but called heads. Hutch flipped the quarter and caught it on his arm. “Sorry, babe, tails it is,” he told Starsky as he showed the result.

“Oh, fine,” Starsky said but he got out of the car.

Hutch leaned out of the passenger side door and said,” Be careful, babe.”

“Always,” Starsky replied with a grin. “Be back in five.”

Hutch fully intended to be across the street in five minutes and two seconds if Starsky hadn’t returned. He watched carefully as his partner tested the door and, finding it unlocked, went inside. In four minutes and twenty-nine seconds, he was back.

“Whadya find?” Hutch asked as he pulled away from the curb. No sense sitting there looking any more obvious than they already had been.

“The place is only about halfway setup, lots of empty shelves, boxes stacked up all over the place. One employee, named Wednesday, teenage girl, very pale, black clothes, long braids. Said the owner was gone for the day. Got the feeling she hasn’t been working there long.”

“Lots of dust in there, too,” Hutch said, taking advantage of a red light to brush away a stray ball of fluff from behind Starsky’s ear. “So that was a bust. Dobey’s not going to be happy.” Hutch wasn’t happy, either. This was such a weird case and very different from their usual. As much as you could have a usual when you were cops dealing with the often strange and seedy parts of humanity every day. But international intrigue wasn’t exactly their specialty. He started heading back toward the station, figuring that made sense until they came up with a better plan.

“Not a total bust,” Starsky said as he wriggled around to work a folded piece of paper out of the pocket of his jeans. “I did find this on the floor near the counter.” He waved around a flyer printed on bright neon orange and complained, “Jeez, just because Publisher has three dozen fonts doesn’t mean you have to use them all.”

Hutch took a quick glance over as they got stuck at yet another light. “Seriously? Bookman Old Style, Lucida Calligraphy, Rockwell Bold, and Copperplate all on the same page? That’s awful.”

Starsky gave him a look and asked, “How in the hell do you know that?”

“I was helping Molly with her science fair poster last month. I think we spent more time on the design than the content. Then again, there’s only so much you can say about the eating habits of bats.”

“Well, it’s an eye-blinding flyer, but at least it’s useful,” Starsky said. That piece of paper was the best lead they had gotten all day. In 18 point, bold, italic Comic Sans type it announced an international tribal art exhibit opening at the Bay City library that night. Looked like they had the beginnings of a plan after all.

***

“So, what are we going to do, walk in and ask the reference librarians if they’ve seen anything suspicious?” Starsky asked as he surveyed the front entrance.

“Well, I do have a book on gardening on reserve,” Hutch told him.

“Of course you do,” Starsky replied. “Still trying to figure out what’s wrong with those bluey-purple things?”

“Hydrangeas, and yes.”

“I told ya, you ought try singing to them. It can’t hurt.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s got more to do with the soil, but thanks.”

They entered the Sunnydale branch of the Bay City public library to find nothing out of the ordinary. A group of surprisingly well-behaved kids in the brightly colored children’s section were gathered around a librarian who was enthusiastically reading them Oh, The Places You’ll Go. A college student near the computers was panicking because her paper wasn’t printing and yes of course she’d saved it. Two teenage boys were talking to one very unimpressed teenage girl and getting glared at by a librarian. But there was no sign of any kind of art installation. Starsky jerked a thumb at the Information desk and they headed over to ask the librarian.

“No one tells me anything. We just spent the morning swapping the science fiction section and the mysteries and did anyone bother to let me know so I could bring my wrist brace? Of course not. Hey, Tamika,” she hollered in a voice well beyond a library whisper and Hutch winced. He remembered too many lectures about being too rambunctious in his youth. Well, and from Dobey now. “She’s an intern but she knows everything. It’s kinda scary.”

Tamika pointed across the library toward a glassed-in meeting room that took up the entire back corner. “They were bringing in boxes and setting up earlier. Looks like some pretty amazing native art.”

Hutch followed her finger and saw a roomful of tables covered with exhibits and one bored rent-a-cop stationed at the door. And one figure dressed in black sneaking in the window. Sometimes it really was that easy.

Starsky thanked Tamika and he and Hutch headed for the meeting room, hoping to get the drop on her.

Or not. The intruder caught sight of them and, rather than taking the time to climb out of the barely opened window, pushed the Barney Fife lookalike to the floor as she barreled out the door.

The library seemed twice as big as they chased Moreau through the non-fiction stacks. Hutch almost had her in the astronomy section but she tossed several copies of Cosmos and a large atlas of the universe and nearly took off Hutch’s head. Starsky blocked off the end of the sports aisle but she took advantage of a gap in the shelves to cut through world history and ended up in adult fiction.

Hutch was close behind when Starsky knocked over a stand up of Rick Castle promoting his new book, Heat Rises.

“I’m glad you don’t write about me the way he writes about her,” Starsky said, followed by “Hang a left.”

“Yeah, but the sex scenes would be incredible,” Hutch replied, vaulting over a low shelf of children’s books. “This reminds me of working with the Mountie.”

Fraser had moved back to Canada a few years ago with his partners and the wolf. Starsky had introduced Dief to blintzes and they’d become fast friends. Hutch was sure they were wreaking havoc up north but he and Starsky had their hands full chasing Moreau down here. How big was this damn library anyway?

They finally got her cornered between a terrifying large stuffed rabbit complete with ribbon and gift tag and the RFID anti-theft readers near the front door.

Hutch made a flying tackle and managed to grab her legs just as a large Star Wars Reads poster fell on him, the frame catching his arm and drawing blood.

“You okay, Hutch?” Starsky asked, concern evident in his voice even as he slapped his cuffs on a struggling Moreau.

“It’s just a scrape. I’m fine. No need to call out our favorite paramedics,” Hutch said, wishing for his Taser. He smiled in relief as they finally heard the sound of sirens heralding backup.

“Yeah, I think Johnny and Roy are pretty sick of us by now,” Starsky agreed. “I just hope she doesn’t escape this time.”

“All we can do is catch ’em. Hopefully the paperwork won’t take too long. How about I scramble up some eggs when we get home?” Hutch offered.

“I’m in the mood for dinner, not breakfast. And I know this great Italian place, Lenny’s Pizza. You’ll love it. ”

Author’s Additional Note:

Hutch’s 1996 Geo Prizm is the same one my Dad owns, one of the best cars we’ve ever had and it’s still going. We also had an Easter Egg, it was another Geo and it was a bright green/teal. Sadly it got scrambled when an unlicensed driver came tearing down our street and took out a bush and a big pine tree along with the poor car.

There is no plot to speak of here but I was trying to get in as much technology and banter between the boys as possible. I also snuck in as many fandoms as I could. Flamingo said that crossovers were okay as long as the boys were front and center and apparently my brain decided to take that as a challenge.

Fandoms in order of appearance: