The “Venice Place Stories” started on our slash discussion list, VenicePlace in the mid-90s. List members would write small bits proposing that Starsky & Hutch, still in their mid-thirties, were living in the Venice Place building today, and all the list members lived in the building with them. The stories got more elaborate when Rosemary and I began to write them for SHareCon zines. While the stories often included Con Comm members, this is the first time I attempted to include everyone attending SHareCon that year. You can find a chronological list of other VenicePlace stories at the end.
A brief clip of Hutch playing his guitar on the internet manages to wreak havoc on the SHareCon ConComm and everyone living in VenicePlace.
Originally published in the SHareCon 2012 zine.
“Hutch…!” Starsky’s voice bellowed through Venice Place. “Where are you? You’re gonna be late. Huuuuuuuuutttchhh…”
“I’m coming,” Hutch called, giving his reflection in the bathroom mirror one last look. How the hell did I let Starsky talk me into this?
This had been a bad idea from the get go. He knew that. Hutch still wasn’t sure how he’d gotten into this mess.
Last Saturday, on their way back from seeing the latest Batman move, Starsky and he had stopped for a bite to eat and to chat with Joe, the owner of the restaurant of the same name on the corner of their block. Joe had mentioned how business had been down lately, and how he was thinking about bringing in live music to jumpstart the weekend crowd. The next thing Hutch knew, Starsky had talked him into agreeing to play a few sets. Like the survivor of every train wreck and horrific accident, hysterical amnesia seemed to have blanked out the details of the song and dance Starsky had used to persuade him that singing in front of a crowd was a good idea. But in his heart, Hutch knew it wasn’t. He was already suffering from stage fright, and he hadn’t even left his bathroom yet.
Hutch jumped at a sudden pounding on the door.
“Are you gonna spend the whole night hiding in there?” Starsky demanded from the other side of the closed door.
“Maybe,” Hutch answered.
The scared man staring out of the mirror at him looked ready to bolt out a window. Though, aside from the green tinge to his pale features, he didn’t look too bad. The jeans he had on were faded and hugged him in all the right places. They were the pair he wore whenever he wanted to talk Starsky into doing something his partner wouldn’t willingly agree to in his right mind. The white button-down shirt was comfortable and timeless in its appeal; it set off the colors in his vest perfectly. Huggy called this outfit his ‘old hippie look,’ but, hey, he was an old hippie.
“Huuuutch….” Starsk whined from the other side of the door.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” Hutch muttered and finally opened the door.
Starsky’s hand was raised, as if to pound again. Confused, Hutch watched all the impatience drain from that handsome face and a look of utter astonishment replace it.
“What?” Hutch asked.
“You look amazing,” Starsk said, his hungry eyes running down Hutch’s long form.
Hutch was so startled by the heartfelt compliment that he didn’t even think to protest when those strong hands gripped him as Starsky moved in for a kiss. His nervousness gave way to a different kind of excitement as those talented lips set him on fire. These pants do the trick every time, Hutch thought, moving closer, his own hands scrambling behind Starsky to pull him tight.
As usual, as soon as Hutch’s body started to respond, his jeans reminded him why he should never wear them with seduction in mind. They might be a sure-fire method to get Starsk in the sack, but the tight denim promised to amputate a pretty important part of the proceedings if Hutch didn’t get them off in time. Hutch was working his hands between them to unfasten the damn jeans when his partner started and pulled away.
“Huh?” Hutch protested.
“The show,” Starsky reminded him, breathing hard. “You go on in ten—” Starsky raised his left arm to check his latest timepiece, which had a tiny dial for every time zone, “no, eight minutes.”
“Damn, couldn’t we just…?” Hutch pleaded, nodding towards the nearby bedroom.
“No, we couldn’t. Joe is counting on you. Besides, all the VP neighbor ladies are coming. We can’t disappoint them.”
Hutch groaned. The “neighbor ladies” were the too-many-to-count women who kept moving into their building just to be close to them. Why they seemed obsessed with two Bay City cops, he could not understand. Some days he and Starsk had to sneak in and out of the building just to prevent getting waylaid by well meaning “neighbors.”
It didn’t help that his crazy partner loved their attention—and the steady supply of his favorite cookies and ice cream that were constantly available. He couldn’t remember the last time Starsky did his own laundry or made dinner when it was his turn. Hutch had to give up doing his laundry, too, since no matter how late he snuck down to the laundry room with his underwear, someone always seemed to be waiting for him. “Let me do that for you, Hutch,” some nice lady would say—somehow a different lady each time. “You have more important things to do.” He crept down there once around 3:30 a.m., and there was a VP lady, just waiting for him. Did they live down there?
But this time he was confident that the neighbors were too preoccupied to worry about his brief appearance at Joe’s. “They won’t be there, Starsk. SHareCon’s in a month. They’re too busy. You can hear the computer keys clacking from here.”
“They’ll be there, all right. Flamingo gave them a special dispensation so they could see you perform—in a different way than usual,” Starsky said. “Come on, partner.”
Hutch gripped Starsky’s arms, still hoping he could get him into the bedroom and forestall what was waiting for him. “The ladies won’t mind if we’re late. They always like when we have a little fun before meeting them.”
“Only when they can watch us,” Starsky reminded him. “They’re already at Joe’s. They’re waiting.”
“All the more reason to take advantage of the moment, don’t you think?” Hutch tried out his best come-hither look, the one that usually got Starsky moving double speed towards the bedroom. The growing bulge in the front of Starsky’s faded jeans told him that he wasn’t losing his touch, but his partner gave a firm shake of his head and stepped farther back.
“Later. We’ll give them a show they’ll never forget,” Starsk promised, moving to collect the video camera he’d left sitting on the end table. “Right now, we got people waitin’ on us.”
Left with no choice, Hutch followed Starsky out the apartment door, down the stairs, and onto the street for the short walk to Joe’s on the corner. The place was a trendy little restaurant, one of many in Venice. But lately, when they came down for dinner, the place was half empty and they had their choice of seating. Hutch suspected that even with the neighbor ladies attending, it would be a small, intimate crowd to hear him play. He kept telling himself that, even when they hit the edge of the crowd that started nearly at their own doorway and spread down the block in the direction of Joe’s.
At first, Hutch thought the restaurant beneath his apartment was throwing a special event. But then he glanced through the window and realized the little tapas-Mediterranean-wine bistro was almost empty.
Starsky took hold of Hutch’s wrist to lead the way, weaving his way through the throng while repeating, “‘Scuse us, comin’ through, excuse us please, we’ve got to get through, oh, sorry about your foot, thanks, we’re comin’ through.”
Hutch was beginning to feel like the Queen Mary being towed through the Panama Canal by a tugboat.
Finally, they had to pass one last group of women blocking the doorway. One of them spotted Starsky, then turned to see Hutch behind him as they squeezed through the front door. Without warning, she squealed, “He’s here!”
Inside the restaurant, the room exploded with sudden sound.
Starsky froze in front of him, and Hutch, distracted by the sight that had stopped his partner in his tracks, plowed right into him.
“Holy shit,” Starsky mumbled, looking around the restaurant, which was now crowded beyond capacity—and most of the patrons seemed to be provocatively dressed women.
Hutch caught sight of some familiar faces near the stage. Their Venice Place neighbors were eyeing the surrounding newcomers the way a wolf pack’s alpha female would eye a contender. Not warmly.
“Who the hell are all these women?” Starsky asked. “And where did they come from?”
A busty redhead near them, whose chest looked slightly familiar, jumped to her feet and waved at Hutch. “Hey, Hutch, it’s me—Bluesbaby923 from your LJ fingerpicking group. I spread the word on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and LJ that you were finally performing live. All your fans are here. Sushifender69 flew in from Tokyo just to see you. She’s over there behind all those angry chicks.”
The angry chicks that Bluesbaby923 was pointing to were, of course, their Venice Place neighbors. And she was right. They were not a happy group.
“Why do I see all our cookies crumbling?” Starsky whispered. Then, as if he finally realized that this was not just his stomach’s issue, he demanded in a more outraged tone, “You have fans?”
“No, of course, I don’t have fans,” Hutch protested, staring in horror at the huge crowd of females, all of whom seemed to be undressing him with their eyes.
“Then who the hell are all these women?”
“I don’t know. There has to be some mistake,” Hutch said, still unable to believe what he was seeing.
“Mistake? That woman has your face on her boobs, and it’s not one of the t-shirts April made at the last convention. Look at that.” Starsky was pointing to a shapely brunette two tables over.
“That’s not me!” Hutch protested. “It looks like Rutger Hauer.” Hutch squinted, trying to make out the details on the shirt in the restaurant’s dim light, but the brunette’s copious breasts made it hard to see.
“Well, old Rutger seems to be wearing your favorite John Denver tee shirt,” Starsky said. “And that woman over there has the same shirt on. And that one… and that one… and that one… and that one there has a special message on the bottom: Hutch plucks my heart strings. Nice.” Starsky narrowed his eyes at his partner.
“Someone must have blown up my icon,” Hutch realized, unaware that he’d spoken out loud.
“Your what?” A very unamused Starsky demanded.
“I, um, used a picture of myself in that old John Denver tee shirt for my icon in one of the guitar groups I joined. Someone must’ve blown up the little icon to make those shirts. You know about the guitar groups. Hell, it was your idea for me to post some videos. You filmed me playing the songs, remember? You even posted them to YouTube for me…” Hutch felt like he was defending himself against a charge of infidelity.
“You said it was a small group of serious guitarists.” Starsky had that look in his eye that he’d get right before exploding. “Not a teenybopper boyband list. For God’s sake, those two over there don’t look like they’re even in high school yet.”
Hutch looked where Starsky was pointing.
The first touch of real excitement sparked through Hutch as the taller of the pig-tailed girls waved at him. “That’s Liddy,” Hutch said, grinning. “Her parents musta dropped her off. She’s phenomenal.”
“Phenomenal at what?”
“A phenomenal fingerpicker,” Hutch quickly explained.
“She can’t be even twelve.”
“Ten, actually,” Hutch said. “Come on, let’s say hello.”
Hutch squeezed past a table where the women were sitting two to a chair and sidled over to the little girls, who were sitting right behind the VP ladies.
“Hey, Liddy, nice to meet you in person,” Hutch said, holding out his hand to shake.
“Hi, Hutch. This is my sister, Marie,” the blushing girl introduced an even younger girl beside her. “Is this your Starsky?”
Starsky’s expression was indecipherable at the ‘your Starsky’ comment.
“Yeah, this is Dave.”
“Hi, Dave,” Liddy said.
His partner was never able to resist kids. Relieved, Hutch saw the thunder fade from Starsk’s expression, to be replaced with a huge smile. “Well, hello there.”
“Hutch,” Joe’s voice called from the makeshift stage on the other side of the VP crowd, “it’s show time.”
“‘Scuse me, Liddy. Thanks for coming. It’s wonderful to meet you,” Hutch said, moving towards the stage, where his guitar was waiting beside a stool and mike stand.
“‘Your Starsky’?” Starsky hissed as they made their way to the front.
“I, um, may have dedicated a song or two to you,” Hutch confessed.
“I never filmed any songs dedicated to me,” Starsky said, looking fully prepared to have this argument in front of a crowd that might actually consist of every single woman on the west coast.
“Yeah, well, your iPad’s got a camera, doesn’t it?” Hutch said as they finally reached the table right below the stage.
“Since when do you know how to operate my iPad?”
“You keep telling me how intuitive it is. Well, you were right. Here. Flamingo saved you a seat. We’ll talk about this later, okay?”
“You better believe it, partner,” Starsky didn’t sound the least bit happy.
As Hutch carefully climbed the steps to the short platform, he heard Flamingo stage whisper, “Who the hell are all these bimbos, and where did they come from?”
Hutch flinched. Starsky he could talk out of a pout pretty easily. Flamingo was a whole other matter.
Taking a seat on the stool set up beside the mike and guitar stand, Hutch gave the audience a nervous smile. All he could see were scores of eyes watching him, eyes and upraised cell phones. He had the almost uncontrollable urge to bolt and run out the kitchen door. A few feet below him, his Venice Place neighbors sat glaring at him as though he’d personally betrayed each and every one of them. Starsky didn’t look a hell of a lot friendlier. The night was taking on a definitely surreal edge.
Trembling, he picked up his Fender and played an E chord to test the tuning. She was in perfect tune, so he couldn’t waste any time re-tuning her. Realizing he had to say something to the crowd, he cleared his throat, picked up the mike, waited till the feedback stopped deafening the room, and said, “Ah, thanks for coming, folks, and thanks to Joe for hosting me tonight. Please eat lots of food.” The crowd erupted in laughter as if it were the funniest thing anyone ever said. Hutch groaned inwardly.
Without further fanfare, he started playing an acoustic version of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide. As he played, he looked down at the familiar faces at the nearby tables. He could almost see their anger melting away as he smiled and sang to the ladies who kept him and Starsk stocked with cookies and casseroles. Within two minutes, Keri was sighing out loud, swaying with Angel, and Taya, Cyanne, and CC were singing along on the chorus. Suzan had a naughty glint in her eye as she conferred with Lorraine, Moni, and Nicol. Lorraine and Moni kept glancing at him while sketching, while Suzan and Nicol were busy manipulating small laptops. Dana was watching approvingly over their shoulders. He tried not to think about the new artwork that would undoubtedly appear soon in a hallway nearby featuring him naked while playing the guitar. He wished he’d brought a bigger guitar.
At least Ro was focused on his playing—she was, after all, the guitar purist of the group. She sat there in rapt attention, watching his hands as he changed cords. At least, he assumed it was his hands… He stopped focusing on her before he became distracted.
Cyanne was busy doing something on her tablet, probably sending out a live feed to the VP building and the rest of the known fannish universe for all he knew. Even Flamingo was starting to thaw a little. He wondered if he could dredge up at least one AC/DC number before the evening was out, or maybe that heavy metal song she kept insisting he learn to play for Starsky—Sex on Wheels.
Speaking of the devil, of the group by the stage, only Starsky looked unmollified.
When Landslide finished, Hutch broke out the heavy ammo and started playing the tune he knew to be his lover’s absolute favorite song, a one-hit-wonder by a singer who’d faded so far into obscurity, Hutch couldn’t even remember the guy’s name when introducing the song. “This was a big hit back in the seventies. I don’t remember the singer’s name, but I know you all will remember the words. This one’s for the light of my life. Don’t give up on us, baby. Don’t make the wrong seem right. The future isn’t just one night….”
From the looks on his VP neighbors’ faces and the ‘ahhhhs’ coming from their tables, that song would get him back in their good graces. Less certain of the most important person’s response, Hutch glanced at Starsk.
His partner blushed as their gazes met and gave him a smile that made everything okay.
Moving on to a John Denver favorite, Hutch started to actually enjoy himself. If he just looked at Starsky and the VP ladies, it was kinda like VP’s weekly band practice, except no one else had any instruments and there were a couple of hundred more cellphones present filming him.
He focused on his guitar to keep his nerves together. His hands moved, pulling pure sound from the instrument that at times felt like a part of him. He could forget about the crowd when he focused on the guitar and the music.
He was feeling more confident and relaxed by the fifth number. Hutch was singing another of Starsky’s favorites— “The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle…“—when something happening near the door of the restaurant caught his attention.
A steady stream of waiters and waitresses brought bills and change back and forth to the cash register near the Maitre D’s station by the door. From the amount of cash exchanging hands, Hutch didn’t think Joe would be in the red this month. Hutch had been ignoring the traffic in that corner of the room, but, now, he noticed a skinny guy standing beside Julia, their favorite waitress. His cop’s instinct told him something wasn’t right about the scene. It took him a second to figure out what was out of place. Something about the scared look on Julia’s face and her body language clued him in. Suddenly, his eyes focused on the grip of a .38 he could just make out that was tucked inside the man’s partially opened jacket. Then the young man reached for the gun.
With only seconds to act, his cop reflexes took over. Hutch dropped his Fender to the floor, causing the room to explode with dozens of protests. His back-up piece was out of its ankle holster and in his hand in a heartbeat.
“Police, freeze,” Hutch yelled at the would-be thief, who still hadn’t gotten his gun all the way out.
Screams erupted from all around, and patrons dived under their tables in panic at the sight of his gun. All except the VP ladies, who broke into whoops of excitement, applauding and cheering on their favorite team of cops. “Hutch is gonna make your day, punk!” “Go get ’em, ZebraThree!” “Give up now, crooks, your days are numbered!”
Hutch was almost distracted when one VP’er yelled out, “Here comes Batman and Robin!” but then he remembered that’s what they used to call him and Starsky years ago. Then one of the VP’ers got over-excited and shouted, “Book ’em, Dano!” and the entire mob of neighbor ladies turned to glare. Flamingo grumbled ominously, “Who said that?” but no one confessed.
The racket in the restaurant made the gun-wielding thief look around nervously. He’s gonna grab Julia as a hostage, Hutch realized. He and Starsky exchanged a glance, but as always, his partner knew exactly what he was thinking.
Starsky handed off his camera to the nearest VP neighbor and spun as Hutch ran across the stage, leaping nimbly over his Fender. Starsky could still move faster than a speeding bullet when the need arose. The restaurant broke into absolute mayhem as Starsk leapt from his chair and vaulted from table to table, somehow managing to miss everyone’s full plates. Hutch was dodging closely packed chairs and tables like a barrel-racing stallion as he ran to join his partner.
The thief saw them coming and reached to grab Julia, to hold her as a hostage, but before he could complete the move, Starsky bounded off a nearby table at the same time Hutch threw a full body tackle on the guy around his hips. The three of them went down in heap. Starsky latched on to the thief’s gun hand, pinning it to the ground, and wrested the gun away from him.
“I got his gun!” Starsky yelled to Hutch.
“Here’s some cuffs,” Hutch added, handing his partner his pair and keeping the man pinned to the floor until Starsky had him secured. “Dial 911,” Hutch ordered the dazed-looking Julia as he hauled the thief to his feet.
The restaurant broke into cheers and wild applause. Starsky, always ready to accept a pat on the back, grinned at his audience and bowed theatrically as Hutch rolled his eyes.
But then the woman in the “Rutger Hauer” t-shirt shouted, “Hutch saved us. He’s a hero!” and a spontaneous chant swelled from the audience: “Hutch! Hutch! Hutch! Hutch!!”
Starsky cut his partner a narrow-eyed look. “Do your fans not know you’re a cop… with a partner?”
Hutch tried not to look guilty. “Well… that’s not what the LJ group is for… so it hasn’t exactly… come up. I guess they think I’m just a guitarist.”
“Yeah,” Starsky said sourly as he started to haul the would-be robber out the door, “and Gene Autry was just a singing cowboy!”
“I got it all on video!” Keri shouted at them as they pushed their way out the door. “You were great, Hutch!”
Hutch grinned sheepishly at his partner. “Well, it’s not my fault you handed the camera off to Keri. You could’ve just as easily handed it off to Flamingo!”
“We all got the whole thing on video, Hutch!” said Libby. Everyone in the restaurant waved their cell phones at him.
“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this,” Starsky grumbled as a black and white pulled up at the curb to take their prisoner away.
“That was some quick action in there, my brothers!” Huggy said, as they approached the squad car.
They both looked over at their friend, informant, and sometimes unofficial third partner. “Huggy, were you inside?” Starsky asked, as the two uniforms took their prisoner off their hands.
“No, I’ve been out here, just earnin’ an honest dollar to supplement my income.” Huggy smiled at them. “Nice gig in there, Hutch. You finally getting’ over that very inconvenient stage fright?”
Before Hutch could answer, he spied the vendor’s booth he hadn’t been able to see over the throngs of women they waded through to get in the restaurant. The booth was festooned with dozens of tee shirts, all with the same all-too-familiar image.
“Huggy!” Hutch snapped. “Are you selling those tee shirts with my picture on them?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. And a hot seller they were! April produced them pretty quickly when I told her I needed them tonight. She complained about the picture, though…”
Hutch nearly sputtered in rage. “That’s just an icon picture. It’s all pixilated. It looks terrible. And-and-and you never even asked me!”
“Well, that’s a fine thank you,” Huggy said, acting affronted. “Here I am, spreading your fame far and wide, advertising your gig—”
“And making money off it without paying any residuals,” Starsky pointed out.
“I’ll have you know I have overhead, investment in materials, time, trouble, travel expenses—”
“From the Pits to Venice Place?” Hutch said. “How did you get all that stuff here?”
“In the Torino, of course,” Huggy said.
“You used one of my Torinos?” Starsky said in outrage. Over the years, Starsky had accumulated seven Torinos, one for each day of the week. However, back in 2004, Hutch had sold the Sunday car to those two imitators, and Starsky had never let him forget it. Hutch never could understand why anyone needed seven cars of the same make, model, and paint job.
“Now I know better than to do that without asking,” Huggy said with dignity, “even though, Starsky, since you have a different Torino for every day of the week except Sunday, you would think a brother wouldn’t have to ask his friend of many decades for a lift. But, no! I hitched a ride with one of your friendly, helpful, VP ladies, the lovely XTexan, in her most special chariot—” he pointed a long, elegant finger at the car parked next to his booth.
They both looked, then looked again. Hutch thought if Starsky’s eyes got any wider they’d roll right out of his head. He groaned.
“But… but… but,” Starsky sputtered, “that Torino…it’s—”
“A lovely baby blue,” Huggy confirmed. “As blue as Hutch’s eyes on a bright summer’s day. Yet with its traditional white stripe. No tomatoes here. You won’t be confusing it with any of your mob in the parking lot. Close your mouth, Starsky, you’ll catch flies that way. And Baycityboys, Vedette’s ever-so-handy hubby, helped me build the booth in record time! That man knows his way around a hammer and saw! It dismantles and goes up inside of minutes. Very clever. Of course, if you have objections to the booth, you could always discuss it with him…”
Hutch thought of the friendly body builder who towered over him and Starsky both. “No! No objection to the booth! Great looking booth!”
“Reasonable response,” Huggy said. “So, tell me, Hutch, have you planned the next gig? Because I still have some inventory left over—”
Hutch thought he’d blow a gasket. Before he said something that irrevocably altered their relationship, he stormed down the street to his apartment, Starsky hot on his heels.
***
As Starsky tried to catch up with his partner’s long strides, he kept trying to figure out how an evening that had started out so right could end up so wrong. His mind was still reeling. He felt like he’d discovered that Hutch—the man he worked with, the man he loved, the man he lived with and slept with, the man who he thought was an open book to him—had a secret life that didn’t include him. A secret life that included fans. With t-shirts, yet!
And when the heck did Hutch have time to figure out how to work Starsky’s iPad? He was strictly an Android guy, had been ever since the terrible Droid Wars of 2010! He knew Cyanne couldn’t have had anything to do with it—either Vedette Ceil or Magic MoniK had to have some part in that. They had iPads, and they weren’t afraid to use them! Hutch always did have a soft spot for Moni’s art…! Well, so did he but… that was beside the point!
Before he could get half way up the stairs, he heard Hutch slam their apartment door shut. He paused worriedly. He didn’t like the sound of that. He could sense the evening he’d imagined alone with Hutch evaporating before it had a chance to happen. Normally, after performing in front of people, Hutch’s stage fright would leave him soft, vulnerable, needing Starsky’s strength. Unless things went horribly wrong, like that night at the Saddle Club when Hutch got so pissed off at Starsky for singing too loudly that he’d chased him for three blocks. No, that had not been one of their better nights. And this could end up being a repeat. Only right now he was chasing Hutch.
Before he could start up the staircase, Keri, Angel, and the poet who referred to herself as “youtooblondie” entered the building. He never could figure out where she got that name.
“Starsky, we’ve got your video camera!” Keri said.
He walked back down to meet them. “Thanks, ladies, that’s great.” He checked the settings.
“Keri got everything!” Angel said, her eyes bright as she remembered. “The way Hutch tackled that guy and arrested him! He was so brave.”
Starsky nodded, “Uh…yeah, we were…”
“I felt so inspired,” youtooblondie said breathlessly. “I’ve already started a new poem to pay tribute to the risks he took to save us. I’m calling it, ‘Our Hero.’ ‘As he vaulted from stage, his instrument discarded, his legs nimble quick, his reflexes like a hawk’s—'”
“Um, is that supposed to rhyme?” Starsky asked. When it came to poetry, he was definitely a “roses are red,” kinda guy.
“It’s all there,” Keri said, pointing to the camera, trying to get them back on topic. “Great footage.”
He nodded, then gave them a quick smile. “That’s great. Did you also catch me running across the tables! I didn’t even knock over a glass!”
“Oh,” Keri said, looking pensive. She glanced at Angel, who glanced guiltily at youtooblondie, who looked back at Keri. The three of them seemed confused for a moment. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t see that.”
Angel was shaking her head. “Since Hutch was playing and we were all focused on him—”
“Of course!” Starsky said, keeping his grin in place. “Probably someone else filmed it.”
“Well, they’re still comparing footage in the restaurant,” youtooblondie said helpfully.
“I’m sure somebody captured that,” Keri agreed. “It’s amazing the quality these phones can get these days… Well, you’ll be able to check it out on YouTube. Most of it is already up there.”
His smile faltered. “Already? Uh, including Hutch’s performance—”
“Oh, absolutely. You had great footage of that! We posted that to both the VP channel, and Hutch’s channel.”
He hesitated. Did he want to ask this question? “Hutch has… his own channel?”
They glanced at each other again, three conspirators.
“You…uh, didn’t know?” Angel stammered. “I guess you’ve both been too busy… with police work…”
Keri grabbed the edge of Angel’s sleeve, and plucked at the back of youtooblondie’s t-shirt. “Well, we gotta get back. Flamingo will be looking for us—” They backed out the door a lot faster than they entered.
Starsky could only play over the words, “Hutch has his own channel…” as he walked slowly up the stairs. Starsky didn’t have a channel. He didn’t even know how to get his own channel! He tried to remember exactly why he’d suggested Hutch start posting vids of himself singing and playing. Because you loved it too much to keep it to yourself. You just didn’t know you were gonna have to share this much of him.
Life at Venice Place was never simple. He just couldn’t remember when it got this complicated.
He pulled the key off the lintel and let himself in. Loooseee, I’m home, he thought but decided this wasn’t the right time for his spot-on Ricky Ricardo imitation.
Hutch was busying himself, as he often did when he was conflicted, with watering his plants. Starsky noted that their laptop had been shut off, the phone was off the hook, the iPad was in its sleeve, and Hutch’s Android tablet, the one Cyanne told him to buy, was nowhere to be found. Starsky could only hope he hadn’t thrown it out the window. That thing cost a couple hundred bucks.
Starsky tried to figure out what to ask Hutch first—the songs he dedicated to him on YouTube, his expertise with his iPad, his personal channel, why someone would paint a beautiful Torino the color of Hutch’s eyes, or how the hell 200 women could possibly ignore Starsky while he was running across restaurant tables in the world’s tightest jeans—but then he got a good look at Hutch, and all his petty questions disappeared.
Hutch was wearing Starsky’s favorite outfit. It was his “come hither” outfit, and Starsky was certainly ready for a little come-hithering after the mob scene downstairs.
Starsky took a deep breath, and then using a tone of voice Hutch couldn’t misunderstand said only, “Hey, babe—”
Hutch spun on him so fast, he threw a stream of water out of the spout of the watering can, nearly drenching Starsky. “Don’t you ‘hey, babe’ me! I told you this was a bad idea. But, no! ‘We owe it to Joe. He needs our support.’ Now look what you’ve started!”
“What I started!” Starsky blurted in outrage. “What the hell are you talking about? Who was recording secret love songs and posting them on YouTube without telling me? On my iPad! Who has their own channel on YouTube? It’s not me, that’s for sure!” So much for his resolve to take the high road. Hutch could get him so mad so fast.
“They weren’t secret, you moron. They were a surprise for you. I foolishly assumed you’d be looking at my vids and would see them there and be touched. But, no, your Internet history has nothing but car porn on it—”
“You’ve been checking my Internet history! That’s private! Which I foolishly thought the vids I made of you were, too, for your small intimate nosepicking—”
“FINGERpicking!”
“Guitar group—”
“It was a small group. How could I know those vids would go viral?”
“Oh, I don’t know… maybe because they were on YOUTUBE!”
They were now nose-to-nose. Hutch, after nearly dousing Starsky, had wisely put the watering can down. He was almost standing on tip-toe, making sure his two measly inches of height was working to his best advantage. Like that ever helped. As Starsky always liked to remind Hutch, they were both the same height lying down. And growing up on Brooklyn’s streets gave a guy an advantage in conflict that no sweet Duluth fingerpicker could ever hope to match.
This was usually the point in their word battles when things devolved into physical combat—in bed. Starsky had already thrown a rod, and he knew if Hutch was throwing one in those jeans, he’d be in agony. He’d be happy to help the man out—what were partners for?
Just as they leaned toward each other like two bull moose about to butt heads, there was a sharp rap on the door.
Hutch groaned out loud.
Yeah, he’s thrown a rod. “Ignore it,” Starsky said, his own voice strangled. “It’s just the neighbor ladies.”
The knock came again, only louder.
Hutch shook his head. “They’d never interrupt us at this delicate moment in negotiations.”
Point, Starsky thought. “Then who—?”
“Detective Hutchinson,” a strange male voice called. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
They looked at each, neither of them recognizing the voice. Starsky took the initiative and yanked open the door.
Standing in the hall was a clean-cut, well-dressed stranger about five foot eight with a medium build and what Starsky liked to think of as “a set of browns.” Hair, eyes, shoes… He came right in before Starsky could say anything, and headed straight for Hutch as though Starsky were simply the doorman. He didn’t offer a tip.
“Detective Hutchinson!” the stranger said enthusiastically. “What a thrill to finally meet you!”
“Finally?” Hutch said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Richard Hardeson, and I run the Internet music company, BaddaBing BaddaBoomBoom. We call it the Big Boom for short. I’ve been emailing and sending you tweets and texts all night, but you haven’t responded. But that’s okay, because I had no trouble tracking you down through your YouTube channel.” He held out his hand to Hutch as if to shake as Starsky shut the door a little too loudly and approached him.
On reflex, Hutch reached to shake the man’s hand, but instead of gripping palms, Hardeson plopped a small jewelcase in Hutch’s outstretched hand. Hutch looked at it in confusion at first, and then in dismay. “What the hell is—?”
“That, Detective Hutchinson, is a copy of your first CD: Baby Blue Sings Just for You. Your Internet ratings have gone through the roof and when we heard you were having a live performance, we knew we had to be ready.”
“Ready for what?” Hutch handed the jewel case to Starsky, no doubt so Starsky could have the same look on his face as Hutch had a moment before.
On the cover of the jewel case was a picture of Hutch, no doubt Photoshopped, that showed him charging after a bad guy, with a guitar in one hand, and a gun in the other. In the picture, he was still wearing the John Denver t-shirt. They wouldn’t get away with blaming Rutger Hauer again.
“Where the hell did you get this?” Hutch sputtered.
Starsky’s first insane thought was that Hug was hawking them on the street along with the deformed Rutger Hauer tees.
“Oh, we pulled it together from a few sources,” Hardeson said, immensely pleased with himself. “We had to be ready, Detective Hutchinson, for your debut performance. Our marketing experts are never wrong. Did you know you crashed Twitter tonight? Only Justin Bieber’s ever done that before.”
“Who?” Starsky said.
Hardeson ignored him. “We’re ready to go into full scale production, we’ve got links to your downloads, and we’ve already got you booked for the next six weeks at—”
Hutch started advancing on Hardeson. “Full scale production? You’ve got me booked? Listen, mister, I don’t know who you think you are, but that wasn’t my debut performance, it was my swan song. If I find you selling this piece of bootleg, or using my name or my face to sell anything at all, I’ll have you booked for fraud, bunko, copyright infringement, and extremely bad taste! Now, get the hell out of here before I forget I’m an officer of the law!”
Hardeson looked stunned that Hutch wasn’t embracing his new career with open arms. “I can see you need a day or two to think things over—”
Starsky gripped the guy’s arm before Hutch pulled it off him and beat him over the head with it. “I’d listen to him if I were you. At least he still remembers he’s a cop. I’ve forgotten already.”
“And who are you?” Hardeson foolishly asked. “His agent, I suppose?”
“That’s right. I’m his agent. And we’re starting our own label. We’re calling it Black and Blue. So, unless you want to be part of our new logo—”
Hardeson held his hands up as if surrendering. “Okay, okay, but at least take my card! For when you change your mind.”
Starsky shoved the man bodily out the door. “Watch that first step,” he warned, giving Hardeson a good push towards the steep staircase, “it’s a doozy!”
“Is the whole world going crazy?” Hutch muttered.
“Maybe just our block,” Starsky said mournfully. He knew Hutch well enough to know when “the moment” had passed, and this one had run through two stoplights and died in a head on collision Starsky never saw coming. “Look, why don’t you grab a shower, babe. We’ve got to be at work early tomorrow. I’ll turn down the bed.”
Hutch looked at Starsky sorrowfully, but nodded. As he started unbuttoning his shirt and heading for the bathroom, they could hear voices rising from the street below them. It was a chorus of women. Many, many women.
“Don’t give up on us babeeee…”
They looked at each other. Hutch shook his head and shut the bathroom door with a thud.
Starsky went into the bedroom to shut the windows. He had a feeling that after this long, lonely night, he would never feel the same way about that song again.
***
Hutch didn’t suspect anything unusual the next day at Metro, though he thought it a little odd at first that almost every single cop in the precinct congratulated him on arresting the guy who tried to rob the restaurant. Apparently, the man had been a fugitive who’d committed a number of armed robberies, but always managed to get away before anyone could collar him. But Hutch finally realized something other than the arrest was up when he kept hearing people hum “Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby,” whenever he entered the squadroom, the cafeteria, and even the bathroom.
The report on the robbery had kept him busy most of the morning, so he hadn’t actually been focusing on the world around him. But now the world around him was getting on his last nerve. Even Dobey was humming the tune under his breath when he signed off on Hutch’s report and mumbled, “Nice job last night.”
By the time he was ready to sign out, Hutch had decided it was the last time he was ever singing that song again; he didn’t care how much Starsky liked it.
“You ready to head for home, partner,” Hutch asked Starsky. Starsky had been in one of his moods, and if Hutch had learned one thing over the years, it was not to poke porcupines when the quills are up. They hadn’t said much to each other all day.
“Yeah, I’m ready,” Starsky said. “But we’ll have to go out the east exit.”
Hutch paused at the swinging doors. “We’re not parked anywhere near the east exit. Why do we have to go out that way?”
“Because,” Starsky said in a voice that sounded like he was dredging up the very last of his patience, “the two main exits are staked out.”
“Staked out? By whom?”
Starsky stared at him for a long uncomfortable moment. “By the Rutger Hauer fans. Who do you think?”
Hutch just blinked in dismay. “What are you talking about? That was just… an aberration last night. This is a police station. They don’t even know I’m a cop!”
“They do now,” Starsky said sweetly. “I take it you haven’t looked at your Twitter account today.”
“I was working, of course I didn’t—”
“Mmm, or your email, your LJ, your Dreamwidth account, your—”
“Starsky, will you just get to the point?”
“The point is, you’re now the most famous cop in all of Bay City. Maybe the world. You are once again ‘The Singing Policeman.’ You’re all over the Internet. YouTube nearly had to shut down because so many women posted their cell phone videos of you playing at the restaurant and interrupting your set to catch a crook, which then went totally viral. Or, as one of our own neighbor ladies posted on the VP site, ‘after giving an earth-shattering spectacular performance of acoustic guitar genius, our own Detective Ken Hutchinson then singlehandedly saved the lives of everyone in the restaurant by catching a gun-toting maniac.’ End quote.”
Uh-oh, that sounds like Angel’s post, Hutch thought. She was just a little partial to him.
Before Hutch could stammer a response, the five cops still in the squadroom started crooning “Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby,” with fairly decent harmony. Hutch felt himself blush red to his roots.
Starsky latched onto his shoulder and hauled him out of the squadroom and toward the exit stairs before the cops got to the second chorus.
“I can’t believe you’re mad at me about this!” Hutch protested as they took the east staircase down. “It’s not my fault they’re not giving you credit for the bust. I thought you were pretty spectacular jumping those tables last night without ever putting a sneaker in a salad. And how was I to know all those women would show up? And how was I to know Huggy would take advantage of the situation and plaster a bad picture of me all over a bunch of tee shirts?”
“Have you met Huggy?”
“Okay, point taken. Look, Starsky, my fingerpicking group is just a few serious guitar aficionados who use the internet to help each other practice by posting videos and critiquing our work. It’s not a big community. I didn’t think there’d be any harm in letting the local members know I’d be playing last night.”
“Oh, yeah? Apparently, it didn’t occur to you that each person on your community also might belong to dozens of other communities? And that those people belong to others? Etcetera, etcetera. Because right now, Hutch, you’ve gone viral! We’ll be lucky if they haven’t staked out Venice Place.”
“Oh, come on! You’re exaggerating. They wouldn’t stake out our home!” And if they did, he thought worriedly, the VP neighbor ladies are going to kill us!
***
They had to sneak into Hutch’s apartment by using the back fire escape ladder.
“Don’t put the light on in the bedroom,” Starsky warned. “Not unless you have some blackout curtains.”
“This is ridiculous,” Hutch said, following it up with a pained, “Ooouch!” as he stumbled into the coffee table.
“You okay?”
The question was in Starsky’s voice, but it came out of the darkness, as if the thick shadows in his apartment were talking to him. Unnerved by the eerie quality of the unlit apartment, and the knowledge that there were at least a dozen strangers lurking in front of the apartment building just trying to get a peek at him, Hutch bent to rub his shin. “No. I am not all right. We can’t spend the entire weekend huddling in the dark here.”
“Unfortunately for us, it won’t be dark all weekend. As soon as the sun rises, the paparazzi and your fans will have a clear shot of us through the greenhouse window,” Starsky said.
“How could they see us through the greenhouse window? It’s in the back of the apartment,” Hutch said.
“I’m pretty sure whoever’s up there right now with that camera will see us as soon as you turn on that lamp you’re reaching for,” Starsk warned.
Hutch’s hand froze midair. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Wish I were. Come over here and take a look for yourself.”
Hutch managed to bark his other shin on the coffee table while sidling over to where Starsk was standing. Trying to curse quietly, he stepped closer to his partner.
It was a testament to how stressed out they both were that, even though Hutch’s move had mashed him right up against his partner, with the couch conveniently behind them, it never occurred to Hutch to move in for a kiss. Instead of admiring Starsky’s features, which were incredibly sexy illuminated by the streetlights seeping in from the open fire escape window, he noted distractedly, Hutch’s gaze was drawn to the silhouette on the roof of the building across the alley behind the greenhouse window. He could see a dark figure huddling there. The lens on the camera tripod in front of the figure was nearly as long as a rifle.
“This is insane. We need to call the precinct and—”
“And what?” Starsky demanded. “Even if the guys stop laughing long enough to come bust the clown, he’ll just claim freedom of the press or that he’s bird watching like the other six we triedta bust today.”
“It’s pitch black out there. He can’t be bird watching,” Hutch pointed out.
“Okay, so he’s moon watchin’. What difference does it make? He’s still gonna get off scott free.”
“Maybe I’ll just go over there and have a little chat with him about this blatant violation of our constitutional rights,” Hutch said, though, the little voice inside his head that kept him out of prison was counseling him that it wasn’t the brightest idea to have an argument with a member of the paparazzi on a rooftop with a loaded Magnum strapped to his armpit.
“Your last attempt at making them see reason didn’t work out so good,” Starsky reminded him.
“I didn’t know there was a second camera man in the Bucket of Blood’s john,” Hutch swore.
“Yeah, well, that footage of you goin’ postal and flushing the guy’s camera down the toilet is running a close second to the Singing Policeman vid from Friday night,” Starsky reported. “Last time I checked, it had 92,648 likes.”
“You’re making that up,” Hutch accused.
Starsky pulled his iPhone out. It was an iPhone 5. He’d traded his “old” one in just that morning. The only reason he hadn’t stood on line for two days to get the new one the first day it was out was because Dobey swore he’d bust him down to traffic if he found out he was wasting time on that line. A moment later, he thrust the device in front of Hutch’s face.
“Sorry, I was wrong. It’s up to 1,030,725 now.”
“Put that thing away,” Hutch hissed. “They’ll see the light.”
Starsky pocketed the phone. “It just keeps getting worse.”
“Well, what the hell was I supposed to do? He was filming me using the urinal,” Hutch said in his defense.
“Which is the only reason you’re not up on assault and battery charges.”
For a moment, they just stood there in the dark like sneak thieves, breathing hard, watching the vulture cameraman’s silhouette.
“What the hell are we gonna do?” Hutch whispered raggedly. “We can’t spend the whole night standing here in the dark.”
“I got a plan,” Starsky announced abruptly with entirely too much confidence and enthusiasm.
“Those four words have preceded nearly every disaster in our lives,” Hutch reminded his partner.
“Do you wanna hear my plan or do you wanna spend the rest of the weekend hiding here in the dark?”
Since the darkness was actually their friend in this situation and they were about to lose it in a few short hours, Hutch heard himself ask, “All right, what’s your great idea?”
“I think we oughtta get the hell outta Dodge right now and hide out ’til this all blows over,” Starsky suggested.
“You’re actually suggesting that we allow these… voyeurs to drive us out of our own home?” Hutch was too stunned to even try to moderate his horror.
“Hutch, you won’t even let me use the cellphone. We can’t turn on the lights. We can’t make love in that bed or anywhere else in the apartment without some peeping tom recording us—”
“The neighbor ladies have been recording us making love for years and it hasn’t bothered you,” Hutch pointed out.
“Yeah, but those are our people.” Starsky stopped speaking and they both stared around the pitch-black room as a hundred female sounding “Ahhhhs” susurrated through the building. When the sound died down, Starsky seemed to shake himself and make a visible effort to continue as if they hadn’t heard a thing, “They make us cookies and cook us dinner and do our laundry. The least we can do is keep them entertained. These reporters are different. Unless you’re suggestin’ that we expand our audience to encompass the entire internet?”
“Of course, I’m not suggesting anything like that. I don’t even want the neighbors watching us.” Hutch still couldn’t understand how his bashful partner could be all right about all these neighbor ladies watching them in bed, and in the living room, kitchen, bathroom, greenhouse, and, a couple of times, in the closet, when they wanted complete privacy.
“Then we gotta pull up stakes for a while.”
“And go where? Mars?” Hutch suggested.
“No, they got cameras up there now, too. It’d be just our luck that we’d be doin’ it and that little Curiosity rover guy would show up and film us. I’ve been givin’ this some thought and—” Starsky broke off again as a horrific clamor of many barking dogs pierced the late night quiet.
They rushed to the nearest window, knocking Starsky’s Adams family chair over in their haste. The window looked down at the courtyard/garden between Venice Place and the building with the vulture reporter on the roof. The bizarre skeleton of a long-dead tree trunk sat in the middle of the Sculpture Garden that started at the alley next to their building and continued into their back yard. The tree skeleton had a long sloping angle and many reaching “arms” from when it had been a vibrant apple tree a long time ago. Now it looked like a forlorn replica of the dead Gondor King’s tree from Lord of the Rings. While the people managing the Sculpture Garden liked to hang flowering plants from its many arms, it had become, in recent years, a canine jungle gym for one of Flamingo’s dogs, a tree-climbing, vermin-killing, squirrel-hunting, hyper-active, overly loud Treeing Feist named Foxy. Normally, all the VP dogs that belonged to numerous neighbor ladies were all asleep this late at night. This close to the con, they should only be hearing the sound of frantically clicking keyboard keys in the various apartments.
But not tonight. The backyard suddenly sounded like a cross between Hound of the Baskervilles—the Peter Cushing version—and a dozen grade-b werewolf movies.
As they peered over the windowsill so only their eyes were showing, another camera-toting trespasser suddenly rushed into the courtyard to aim his weapon… uh, camera of choice at their window. Was that a night scope on that camera? How stupid would they look peering over the windowsill like an old-fashioned cartoon of Kilroy was here?
Before Hutch could tow Starsky away from the window, a sudden blur of white that looked like nothing more than a giant animated cotton swab rushed out from under a hydrangea and headed straight for the night-scope paparazzi. Horrified, Hutch realized he was watching Keri’s sweet little poodle, Emma Abigail—the dog whose formal name continually befuddled Starsky. Emma valiantly charged the paparazzi, yapping ferociously, or at least as ferocious as a 15-pound dog could yap. Hutch had to admit, Emma had heart.
At first, the guy grabbed his equipment, and looked like he was going to run. But then he seemed to realize how tiny the canine defender was. He paused, bracing himself, and pulled back his foot.
“Oh my God,” Starsky said. “The sun-uva-bitch is gonna kick Emily Dickenson.”
Hutch grabbed Starsky’s hand as it slipped towards his holster. “You can’t shoot him! But we’ve gotta save her!”
They both were about to bolt for the fire escape to save Emma Abigail, when the Flamingo-Crowrow dogpack poured out the back door. Suddenly, the small courtyard was a sea of outraged dogs of all sizes, all stampeding towards the interloper, all trailing leashes behind them.
“Looks like the dogs got away from Ro again during her walk,” Starsky said.
“Timing couldn’t be better!” Hutch agreed.
The paparazzi guy took one look at Tami, a big mixed black lab, rushing his way, and grabbed his night scope and climbed the nearest tall object, which turned out to be the canine jungle gym.
Starsky tsk-tsked. “That’s a mistake.”
“I’d say so,” Hutch agreed.
Foxy, the manic red Treeing Feist, and one of the teeney-weeney evil mixed chihuahua-yorkies—Hutch could never remember which was which, since both were evil in different ways—raced right up the tree after him. Nice of Foxy to teach them that trick.
The reporter was now perched on the end of the tallest limb, keeping Foxy, the scourge of squirreldom, and her apprentice at bay with his video camera, while all the other dogs bounced up and down, snapping at the reporter’s dangling legs like a pack of tiger sharks circling a fresh kill.
Hutch couldn’t remember when he’d seen anything that funny!
A heartbeat later, four of the neighbor ladies came rushing after the dogs and did their best to catch the crazed canines’ leashes.
Both Starsky and he nearly jumped out of their skins when a sudden pounding sounded at their door. They looked at each other.
“It could be another reporter,” Starsky stage whispered.
“Or worse, another record executive!” Hutch said.
The banging got louder. “Hutch, Starsky, we know y’all ‘re in there. Open up,” a familiar female voice with a lilting Tennessee accent called.
“It’s one of the neighbor ladies,” Starsky said in visible relief. “Do you think she brought dinner?”
Hutch pretended not to have heard that question and hurried to the door.
CC, looking very fetching if a little rumpled, was standing there in her blue terrycloth robe. “Flamingo wants the two of you in the music room. Now.”
“It’s not band practice night, is it?” Starsky asked from behind him.
CC exchanged a look with Hutch that seemed to incorporate the same exasperated thoughts he was having at the ridiculous question.
Visibly struggling not to laugh, CC answered, “No, it’s not band practice. The music room is the only room in the building with no windows.”
“Maybe we can bring some bedding and sleep there.” Starsky seemed to be talking to himself.
“Just hurry up, will you? I’m on patrol in a half hour,” CC said.
“Patrol?” Hutch stepped out into the hall to follow her down to the building’s basement.
“We’ve been taking turns walking the VP dogs around the perimeter of the building nonstop to keep the reporters at bay,” she explained as they hurried down the last set of stairs. “That last guy snuck past us when we were covering the front of the building.”
Down below, they could hear numerous conversations taking place. When they entered the music room, the entire community of neighbor ladies seemed to be there in their pjs, all talking at the same time.
“This isn’t the Bedtime Stories panel, is it?” Starsky asked nervously.
“The what panel?” Hutch asked.
“Who’s had time for bed, let alone bed time stories, since Friday night?” Saint Anne snapped.
“Do you have any idea what this place has been like for the last 24 hours?” Taya demanded.
“Let’s take it easy! It’s all good,” Cyanne said calmly, trying to placate her sleep-deprived sisters.
“It’s not all good,” an inimitable voice cut through all chatter. “We’ve got a con in less than a month. You do realize that, don’t you?” Her Pinkness made her way through the crowd of neighbor ladies, pink boa nearly tangling around her legs. Her flamingo-headed slippers almost seemed to be alive to Hutch.
As she drew near, he took a step back. He half expected the slippers to bite. “We’ve had one or two real problems on our hands,” he snapped back, hoping he didn’t sound as defensive as he felt.
“You’re gonna have a lot bigger problem to deal with if you keep that tone up, buddy,” Starsk warned from beside him. “And watch out for the slippers. The left one’s real mean.”
Hutch was just itching to point his index finger in the irascible Flamingo’s face, but he knew Starsky was right. It would be worth his life to start with a cranky Flamingo. Besides, Starsky sided with her more times than not. Turning on an easier target, he pointed the Hutchinson finger at his lover. “You keep out of this. This is all your fault.”
“My fault?” Starsky yelped. “Who was it who flushed the reporter’s camera down the toilet? Whose fan club circulated that robbery vid all over the internet? Whose fingernosing fans never caught a single frame of my run across the tables?”
Any sympathy the neighbor ladies might have had for Hutch’s plight seemed to disappear at Starsky’s reminder of the interloping, encroaching internet females. An angry rumble passed through the room as their neighbors whispered among themselves.
“Starsky’s right,” Dawnwind exclaimed, crossing her arms.
“You always take his side,” Hutch complained. He secretly suspected that Dawnwind had trouble even seeing him at all unless Starsky was actually touching him.
“Please don’t yell at Hutch,” Angel told Dawn, springing to his defense.
“Ladies, ladies,” Starsky said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture.
“This is not why I traveled all the way from the Netherlands!” Moira said plaintively.
“You can say that again,” Robin agreed.
“Or I from Germany,” Moni chimed in.
“I sure didn’t fly in from Canada for this,” Dana complained.
“Or me from Ypsilanti,” Lisa O. added.
“Wow,” said Starsky, clearly impressed. “Ypsilanti? Jeez, that must be on the other side of the planet!”
Hutch rolled his eyes. “It’s in Michigan, Starsk.”
Starsky glanced around sheepishly. “I knew that.”
“You think that’s a rough trip? Kath and I have got you all beat!” Glow said suddenly.
“Where did you come from?” Hutch asked.
“Staten Island,” Glow said.
Starsky and Hutch looked at each other, trying to figure out how that trip could be harder than coming from overseas.
“We’ve gotta drive through New Jersey,” Glow reminded them.
They nodded sagely. Point taken.
An eardrum-shattering shout that sounded like the voice of God demanded, “Enough! This isn’t solving anything.”
Everybody turned to stare in amazement as the softspoken Saint Anne called them all back to reason.
“She’s right,” various neighbors concurred.
“This has to end—tonight,” Flamingo declared.
“We’ve got a plan,” Starsky said. “We’re gonna go outta town for a while.”
A collective gasp shuddered through the room.
“You’re…gonna leave Venice Place?” Carmen asked in dismay. Clearly, she was speaking for the group.
Next to her, Franzeska poked her friend. “Write it down. Get the date. Make a note. Don’t forget to cite it. It’s gotta go in fanlore. It’s historic!”
“Well,” Starsky said, clearly feeling bad, “not forever… just ’til things blow over!”
Carmen looked mollified as she made her entry.
Next to her, Franzeska poked her friend again. “Okay, good! When they get back, we can note that, too. And then we can interview them for the oral history part.”
“Oral what?” Starsky said, immediately distracted.
“FOCUS!” Hutch roared at him, seeing that glassy look in his eyes. “And just where are we supposed to go?” Hutch asked his lover. “That vid went viral.”
Snapping out of his daze, Starsky turned to Hutch. “I told you I had a plan. I talked to Dobey today. He said we could use his cabin.”
“You’re offering to voluntarily go to the woods?” Hutch marveled.
“Isn’t that the place with Satanists next door?” Moni asked, alarmed.
“Across the lake. But don’t worry. They’re all still doing time,” Vedette assured her. “I checked it in the database. And since the boys rescued the sheriff’s daughter 30 years ago, they’re the town heroes. Their names are legendary. No reporters will be able to sneak past that hostile small-town population.”
“I don’t know about that,” Suz™ said. “Seems like the Satanists had no trouble sneaking past ’em the first time. Maybe we should check to see if any of them have gotten an early release for good behavior.”
“How can Satanists have good behavior?” Taya asked, bewildered.
Starsky held up his hand for silence. “I figured we could lose the reporters in all those trees. God knows, we get lost every time we try to go up there.”
“Do not,” Hutch protested.
“Do, too,” Starsky argued.
“Do not,” Hutch answered.
Starsky’s mouth was opening to reiterate his stand when Flamingo shoved a cookie into it. He chewed quickly and efficiently, and mumbled around a full mouth, “Mmm bbee zzff uubbbb!”
“What did you say?” everyone in the room asked at once.
Sue D. produced a glass of milk as if by magic and handed it to him. He drank it gratefully, clearing his mouth. “And they call me ‘Cruella,'” she said with a smirk.
“Thanks, doll!” he said clearly. “I said, the other advantage to the Dobey cabin is that it’s out of range of cell phones and other electronic gizmos. No signals. That’ll mean that reporters would have to transmit their photos and stories via telephone or some other non-digital system… and the townsfolk won’t help them in any way. So, even if they found us, it would be really hard for them to file any stories. Add in hostile townspeople, and before you know it, the paparazzi will disappear, and we can come home.”
“Did you write that down?” Franzeska asked Carmen.
“I got it, I got it, I just gotta clean up the code….” Carmen tapped away efficiently.
“Well…that sounds almost reasonable, even for you,” Hutch agreed. “But even if we did try to go, there are a few small flaws in your plan.”
“Such as?” Starsky challenged.
“The six reporters outside,” Hutch said.
“Are we sure they’re still out there?” Suzan asked. “The patrol dogs have been quiet lately.”
All eyes turned to Cyanne, who tapped some keys on her laptop, consulted the security software on her tablet, looked over at the VP desktop she also maintained, and checked the hockey scores on her smartphone. “Hey, they’re winning,” she said happily, then reported, “There are two paparazzies out front going through our garbage, one on the roof out back trying to take pictures of your dark apartment, one in the east side alley—oh, wait, I think he’s being held up by some muggers—and the treed moron is still in the backyard. Foxy’s got hold of his pants leg. His butt’s exposed.” She started to laugh. “Not one of our better butts, ladies!” A sudden crowd clustered around her screen.
“How does she know that?” Hutch asked Starsky, marveling.
“Well, I think they’re using the same cameras they use on us, but they’ve positioned these around the perimeter. But to really be able to evaluate someone’s butt, I would think they’d need some infrared—” Starsky started to explain.
“No,” Hutch interrupted. “The hockey scores. How she get them instantaneously like that? Doesn’t hockey season ever end?”
Sighing in exasperation, Starsky said wearily, “We’ll ask her when we get back.”
Franzeska poked Carmen. “I don’t think there’s anything in fanlore about Hutch’s interest in hockey.”
“Well, he is from Minnesota, but it’s not canon,” Carmen said, researching the topic.
“Can we please stay on topic!” Taya said irritably. “This is worse than a con meta-panel! Just how are we gonna get rid of all those paparazzi so you guys can sneak out of here? They’ll just follow if you try to leave.”
Ro, AKA Crowrow, who had been, as usual, napping on the floor in a middle of a pile dogs and kittens, like she did at every S&H party she’d attended for the last two decades, popped up and said the most terrifying words in the English language: “I have an idea. We can do this!”
A hush fell over the room. The only words more frightening were Starsky saying he had a plan.
“Well, before rejecting her idea before she even voices it, does anyone else have any other ideas?” Miss Linda LCabrillo asked.
“No, but…” Hutch tried to find a polite way to make the indelicate suggestion that someone living in their own private universe as Ro did probably wasn’t the best person to give advice.
“I know I’m gonna regret this,” Flamingo muttered, “but what’s your idea, Ro?”
“Well, you know how we got all the con stuff outta storage yesterday?” Crowrow said.
“Yeah?” Flamingo was clearly confused by the apparent non sequitur. Saint Anne, Cyanne, Vedette, and Moni all checked their Nooks, Galaxy Samsung tablets, and iPads to consult their RoVerse translators.
“I got nothing,” Cyanne said.
“Me neither,” Vedette confirmed.
“Nothing in German,” Moni said, shaking her head.
Saint Anne added, “This is a new non sequitur. Okay, what does the con stuff have to do with getting VP somewhere back to what passes for normal?”
“Well, there are about half a dozen old SHareCon costumes that we use for the plays,” Ro reminded them. “We’ve got enough wigs and clothes to outfit four or five sets of ringers for these guys. We send the ringers dressed like Starsky and Hutch out of VP in five-minute intervals. Each pair could drive a different one of Starsky’s Torinos away in a different direction.”
Hutch could see that Starsky was about to protest the commandeering of his Torinos when a voice in the back called out. “What about my car?”
They turned to see XTexan, the owner of the baby blue Torino.
“Well…I don’t think we could use your car,” Ro assured her. “It’s blue. But the paparazzi will follow the ringer Starskys and Hutches in Starsky’s red cars.”
XTexan nodded. “Yeah, that would work.”
“What!!!” Starsky sputtered. “All my cars…! The neighbor ladies are gonna drive my Torinos? Anne’s gonna drive one of my Torinos!” Starsky started to freak out. Anne’s lead foot was notorious.
“Ssh,” Hutch admonished him. “This scheme might actually work.”
Starsky stared at him in horror. “This from the man who sold one of my best cars without even asking me AND brought down the wrath of the internet on us in the first place!”
“Then, while the fake Starskys and Hutches are driving away in six different directions, the real Starsky and Hutch could leave in Hutch’s car and head for the hills. Provided they can get the squash to work long enough to clear the parking lot,” Ro finished. Then, pushing one of the dogs aside, she laid back down on the rug and seemed to go back to sleep.
And, on that note, the planning began.
***
“This isn’t going to work,” Saint Anne said irritably. “It didn’t work at Zebracon, and it won’t work now.”
“It’ll work. Just stand still,” Flamingo ordered, as she used sewing thread to mold a sock filled with birdseed into something resembling a penis. “There. Now slide this down your pants and you’re good to go.”
“It’s dark! I’m wearing black pants. No one’s even going to notice this thing. And it’s leaking,” Saint Anne pointed out.
“No, it’s not. Just hurry up and go with Suz™. You’ve got three minutes to clear the parking lot before the next set of ringers leads the west side reporters away.”
“It’s leaking all over,” Saint Anne repeated. “I’ll have a flock of sparrows following me wherever I go. Starsky will have a fit if I leave birdseed all over his Tuesday car.”
“No, it’s fine. Just go. You make a great Ramon, sweetie,” Flamingo said, giving her partner a fast kiss before pushing the Ramon-clone over to where Suz™ was adjusting her Hutch wig.
“All this talent,” Suz™ grumbled, “and never any dialog!”
“Remember,” Flamingo warned, “act furtive, but move fast.”
Saint Anne and Suz™ picked up their fake luggage and quickly left the music room. Everyone pretended not to notice Crowrow’s dog, Mitzi, who followed after them, gobbling down the trail of birdseed Anne left in her wake.
“You ready to go, April and Angel?” Flamingo asked the last pair of ringers.
“Not quite,” April said.
“What’s the hold up, here?” Flamingo demanded.
“We both want to play Hutch!” April said, as she and Angel played tug of war with a rather moth-eaten blond wig.
“Flip a coin and get a move on!” the Pink One roared. Handing them another set of luggage, Flamingo sent the last set of partners out into the night.
“Do you think they’ll really fool the reporters?” Keri asked out loud. “I mean, they’re wearing 70s’ jackets and sweaters, but they don’t have guns, and more importantly, they don’t exactly fill out their blue jeans as well as our guys do.”
“Anne makes a great Starsky,” Flamingo protested.
“Before her cock deflated,” Baycityboys politely pointed out. “I think you should’ve used foam core.”
Cyanne looked up from her laptop’s security program to confirm, “So far, it’s working. Hard to believe, but… all the paparazzi are following our teams.”
“Are the guys ready?” Flamingo asked.
“They’re arguing over how many bags Hutch has packed,” Cyanne replied.
“How many does he have?” Lisa O from Ypsilanti asked. “They’re just going for the weekend, right?”
“Seven suitcases and the guitar case,” Cyanne answered, using a track ball to swivel one of the cameras around to get a better look.
“He packed seven bags in five minutes?” CC marveled. “Maybe we should put him on the ConCom.” At the looks that earned her, she added, “Or not.”
“Who wants to hurry them along?” Flamingo asked.
There was no response.
Prior to Friday night’s betrayal, a dozen hands would have gone up and there would have been good natured tussling over the honor of personally interacting with the guys. But since Hutch’s new internet-boyband-teenie-bopper fans had hit the scene, the VP ladies hadn’t been cooking as many cookies or casseroles for their heroes. Flamingo knew the resentment would blow over after the first good sex scene hit the VP closed camera network, but with these damn reporters hanging around and spoiling the mood, that sex scene could be a long way off.
Finally, Vedette sighed and raised her hand. “I’ll go get them,” she said reluctantly, “if only to get this party started. We’ve still got so much to do before the con!”
“Don’t remind me,” Flamingo said. “Tell them they have to be out of the building and in the squash in five minutes.”
As soon as Vedette had left to chivvy the guys along, Suzan remarked, “You do realize they’ll be up there alone in those woods, doing it all over creation, in actual privacy, while we’re stuck here hiding from the paparazzi?”
“All that inspiration will be lost on the wildlife,” Lorraine lamented, “not to mention reference material.”
“Yeah, I was hoping the next time they get it on, they’d give me some ideas so I could finish the sex scene I’m stuck on,” Dawnwind said. “Besides, I need better measurements for Starsky’s new leather harness.”
“Well, if all you bakers would stop leaving dozens of cookies outside his door,” Baycityboys reminded them, “he’d still fit in the old one. I keep telling you; make him protein shakes. Forget the cookies!”
“We all know Starsky’s opinion of protein shakes,” Flamingo said. “You’d have to tie him down and force feed them to him.” She paused and cast a jaundiced eye at Dawn. “Don’t get any ideas. Well, there’s nothing to be done about them being alone in the woods without a single camera. “We’ve all got stories and art and zines and vids to finish up. Programming to decide on. The con’s almost here.”
“But how are we going to finish without them to inspire us?” Nicol Tyler asked. “I’ve got about five unfinished pieces just sitting there. I need some new positions, some better expressions. I need to see something hot.”
“We need reference material!” Lorraine agreed.
“This place is going to be so empty without them,” CC pointed out mournfully. “It’ll just be another dumpy old building without enough bathrooms!”
A voice emerged from the tangle of dogs and kittens on the floor that everyone knew to ignore. “We could always rent the cabin across the lake. As of this morning, ReMax said it was still vacant.”
“The Satanists’ cabin?” Keri asked with a visible shudder. “Emma Abigail does not need to be infested with ticks or used as a sacrifice in dark rituals!”
“Vedette said the Satanists are still doing time,” Moni reminded them again.
“We’ll lose two hours work time getting up there,” Flamingo pointed out.
“Yeah, but we won’t have to patrol the grounds with the dogs if we go,” Kat said. “That’ll free up four more people for con prep. And it might give me just enough time to finish the vid I’m working on.”
“The paparazzi—” Flamingo began.
“Don’t care about us,” Taya declared. “That’s the second good idea Ro’s had! This is getting scary.”
Suzan brought out the heavy ammo. “Starsky will probably wear his red long johns again.”
Lorraine gasped. “You think—? Where’s my sketch book!”
“My laptop’s ready!” Nicol said. “I can drive!”
And, as easy as that, VP began packing for its first vacation since Cabrillo Con.
***
“I can’t believe how much they’ve changed the roads up here,” Hutch said as they finally pulled to a stop in front of the General Store in the small town located near Dobey’s cabin.
“I didn’t think we’d ever see civilization again,” Starsky grumped as he opened the car door. “Thought we’d run out of gas lost out in those woods and they’d find our skeletons next spring.”
“We weren’t lost,” Hutch insisted.
“So, you planned that two-hour side trip through Grizzly Adam’s backyard?” Starsky snarked.
Hutch opened his mouth to protest, closed it, then lamely answered, “They changed the roads.”
“Poor Garmanna thought we were in the lake,” Starsky said, referring to the nickname he’d given their GPS device.
“I told you to update the maps before we left,” Hutch groused.
“And when was I supposed to do that? If you recall, I was too busy hauling your ninety bags down to the squash under the cover of darkness.”
“It was only eight,” Hutch corrected.
“Only eight, he says.”
Hutch was spared answering by an overjoyed shout of, “It’s Starsky and Hutch,” as they stepped into the store. Hutch recognized the woman behind the counter from the first time they’d been up here, when those Satanists had kidnapped her daughter. It took him a moment to recall the sheriff’s wife’s name. “Hello, Rachel. It’s good to see you again.”
“Welcome! I never thought we’d see you up here again,” Rachel commented. “That was some vacation you boys had last time. We saw your Singing Policeman vid, Ken. It was adorable.”
“I preferred the one where he flushed that reporter’s camera down the toilet,” Sherriff Tyce said with a smile and an outstretched hand as he came into the shop from the back room.
“Yeah, well, we’re trying to hide out from the reporters ’til this whole thing blows over,” Starsky said, shaking the sheriff’s hand. “They’ve been making our life living hell.”
“You came to the right place,” Sheriff Tyce said. “It’s not likely any strange reporters will be able to find their way to Dobey’s cabin. If we spot ’em wanderin’ around, or askin’ for directions, they can cool their heels in the hoosegow! Enjoy your stay. You look like you could use a little peace and quiet.”
“How long are you staying?” Rachel asked.
“Just the weekend. We hope this whole mess will die down by Monday,” Hutch said.
“I’m sure it will,” Rachel said.
“How’s Lizzie?” Starsky asked after the girl they’d rescued years ago.
“She’s doing great. She became a grandma for the third time last month.”
“Grandma?” Hutch asked. In his mind, Lizzie was still 16, but he realized that she had to be over 40 now.
“Yes, sir. Her oldest boy, Kenneth David, well, his wife had her third last month. This is the latest picture,” Rachel said, removing a photo of a lovely young woman with a pink-faced baby in her arms and two curly haired toddlers on her lap that was taped to the cash register.
“She’s lovely,” Hutch said.
“The big one is named after me,” Rachel said. “The two-year-old is Kenneth David, after his dad. The baby is Joseph Michael.”
“Kenneth David?” Hutch asked.
Rachel grinned. “Lizzie wanted to let you know when she had Ken, but time kinda got away from us. But you boys didn’t come to hear about the grandkids. What can we do for you?”
“We need some supplies,” Starsky said, handing over the list that he’d penned while they were not-lost in the woods.
“And I need some allergy medicine,” Hutch said.
Rachel looked over the list. “I can get you all of this, but, I’m sorry, Ken, the school teachers cleaned out all our allergy tablets.”
“The school teachers?” Starsky asked.
“Yeah, a convoy of them came through here a few hours ago. There were vans and cars filled with women who looked like school teachers. They cleaned out the entire allergy section.”
“They didn’t ask about us, did they?” Starsky asked nervously. He was beginning to think he’d lived too long if the very presence of nearby women was making him twitchy.
“No. They wanted directions to the cabin across the lake from Captain Dobey’s.”
“The one with the Satanists?”
“There haven’t been any Satanists up there in years, thanks to you boys,” Rachel said.
***
“I feel ancient,” Hutch said as they loaded the three boxes of food and fishing gear onto the floor behind their seats. The trunk was crammed with Hutch’s bags. The guitar case and the single overnight case Starsky had brought were uneasily sharing the back seat. “Lizzie’s a grandmother.”
“At least she’s not a great-grandmother yet,” Starsky said. “Not everybody can hold onto their good looks the way we do. Did you get Chips Ahoy? You know there won’t be any cookie deliveries where we’re going.”
“I wouldn’t count on there being many when we get home, either. The neighbor ladies are not very happy with us,” Hutch said.
“You mean with you.”
“How’s that?” Hutch asked, irritably.
“Well, it wasn’t my fan club that pissed them off.”
“It’s not my fan club,” Hutch repeated for the millionth time.
“Whatever. I see our future now, living in an empty, abandoned building with nothing but a lonely thermos on the doorstep filled with green protein shakes and a note from the last remaining neighbor who gives a damn about our well-being, ‘Drink this. It’s good for you. It’ll make you strong for the lonely days ahead! Love, Baycityboys.'”
Hutch sighed, suspecting Starsky was right.
“Let’s just get up to that cabin before we lose the light and end up lost in the woods again,” Starsky said worriedly. “I’m exhausted.”
Hutch was too tired to argue. Neither of them had gotten any sleep last night and they’d spent the entire day driving, first to get here, then to find their way out of the woods.
The cabin, as always, was neat and tidy. Edith Dobey wouldn’t leave it in any other condition. They’d replaced the front door that had the pentagram painted on it years ago, since that had been needed as evidence in the Satanist trial.
Starsky immediately checked the refrigerator for snakes, and finding none, plugged the fridge in. Pulling two six-packs of beer from his overnight case, he nestled them in the pristine, empty fridge. “Loooseee, I’m home,” he murmured to the empty refrigerator in his best Ricky Ricardo imitation. “No casseroles from Ardis Chy.anne. No home-churned ice cream from Casinopoint. No giant oatmeal cookies from Bluesky. No kosher pot roast from WallyGater—”
“Which is the only time you ever eat kosher!” Hutch snapped, shoving the fridge door shut on Starsky’s mournful litany.” Hutch looked down at Starsky’s empty overnight bag. “Is that all you brought with you? Two six packs of beer?”
Starsky shrugged. “What else do I need?”
Hutch sputtered. “How about a change of clothes? How about soap? How about underwear—” Hutch shut up abruptly as he caught the expression on Starsky’s face.
“I’ll wear your clothes. You brought enough to last for a year. And enough soap to wash an elephant twice a day. And why would I bring underwear? I never wear it—remember?” Starsky waggled his eyebrows in what he once told Hutch he knew was an irresistible come on.
Somehow Hutch had no trouble resisting it. “Yeah, I remember. I also remember a few trips to the emergency room when certain body parts got snagged in your zipper when we nearly got caught in the clinches in one of the interrogation rooms.”
Starsky blanched. “No fair reminding me of that! Mood killer!”
“I’m beat. I’m crashing on Cal’s bed. You can have the couch.” Hutch started to head for the alcove and Dobey’s son’s twin bed.
Starsky snagged his elbow. “Hold it. First off, why do I always get the couch?”
“Because it’s too short for me.”
“Flimsy, Hutchinson. Pretty flimsy.” Starsky towed the reluctant blond back to him. “Do you realize, this is the first time in years, decades maybe, that we have been totally alone without observers. Real privacy for the first time in… forever.”
No, that hadn’t occurred to Hutch. He thought about that for a moment, as Starsky towed him closer. Starsky wasn’t waggling his eyebrows now, and the look in his eyes—that intense dark blue stare—was, to Hutch, truly an irresistible come on.
Within seconds the two of them were wrapped around each so tightly, it was impossible to tell where one set of rustic plaid button-up overshirts started and another began. The embrace grew more heated as their mouths joined and their tongues danced together in a meeting as familiar as it was new each time they kissed.
Hutch pulled away first. He was panting and as hard a brick. He could feel Starsky’s erection straining at his zipper. “Wait… where… where the hell can we…?”
“Dobey’s got a king-sized bed upstairs,” Starsky said against Hutch’s open mouth.
“He does?” Hutch said in dismay. “How do you know that?”
“Because when he offered me the cabin, he said, and I quote, ‘And I’d better find my king-size bed in the same condition I left it in, Starsky!’ End quote.”
“Well, if we use it… he won’t,” Hutch protested.
Starsky pulled away and took Hutch by the hand. “That’s what Laundromats are for,” Starsky said, towing Hutch toward the staircase.
“You haven’t done your own laundry in years,” Hutch reminded him. “You have no idea what Laundromats are for!”
“Oh, yeah,” Starsky said, as they went up the stairs single file, Starsky never releasing Hutch’s hand. “I know they have a big door that opens wide and round, and then you fill it full to the top with a bunch of laundry you shove inside, and then it goes round and round and round—”
Hutch felt himself getting harder.
“—until it gets off… I mean, until the clothes get clean.” Starsky stopped besides Dobey’s bed.
Hutch felt a little weird. It was his boss’s bed. Then he remembered something. “Clean sheets!”
Starsky blinked. “You think Edith wouldn’t have put clean sheets on this bed?”
Hutch shook his head. “I brought clean sheets for us to use, so we didn’t mess up theirs. Strip the bed. I’ve got everything we need downstairs.” Hutch dashed down the stairs to get one of the seven suitcases.
As he rummaged around for the right one, a sudden flash out the window caught his eye. He went to the window and stared. He could just barely make out the cabin across the lake, the one with the school teachers. The lights were on. He could see some people moving around outside. He squinted. One of them must’ve had a little white dog. The fluffy thing looked like an animated cotton swab, he thought, amused. Well, even school teachers needed a vacation.
He hauled the suitcase back up the stairs. Starsky had carefully removed the bedding and folded it neatly on a chair. He was standing by the window, and Hutch could see tension in his lithe, fit body.
“Hutch, that cabin across the lake has the biggest dish satellite on the roof I’ve ever seen. Lookit…”
He went to the window and saw what Starsky was referring to. It was a damned big dish. It looked like something from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico. “Well… it’s not like you get great reception up here. That’s why we came. To get away from technology, phones, computers… I can’t understand why those teachers would need something like that while on vacation. Unless they’re actually broadcasting seminars or something. Admirable, I guess, to do that kind of work while on vacation. We’d better hope Dobey doesn’t see it next time he’s up here or he’ll have one installed in a heartbeat.”
“Don’t you think it’s kinda creepy?” Starsky muttered. “I mean… you could pull in Saturn with that thing. What could they need it for?”
“Hey, hey…” Hutch soothed, pulling him away from the window. “I leave you for two minutes, and you lose the mood. Now who’s the mood killer? It was your idea to come up here. Help me make the bed, okay? Then you can help me unmake it again!” He took Starsky in his arms and reminded him of this stolen moment of privacy with a passionate kiss. In seconds, Starsky warmed back up again; he was, as always, the most responsive lover Hutch had ever known.
***
“Okay, ladies, we’ve got contact,” Cyanne said, pumping her fist in the air. Dozens of electronic devices connected simultaneously, bringing in the temporarily relocated Venice Place cable channel. “How’s the image?”
“Too fuzzy to work with,” Lorraine complained.
Moni tilted her head from side to side. “We could consider it soft focus, I suppose—”
“We can sharpen it in Photoshop,” Suzan assured them.
“Or maybe in Gimp,” Nicol agreed.
“Let me work on the resolution,” Cyanne said, fiddling with her parameters. “Anne, try refocusing camera thirteen, I think that one’s the problem.”
“I didn’t know this was going to be this much work,” Anne grumbled. “I should’ve stayed home with the dogs!”
“Oh, that’s much better!” Dar and Sherry Lou said simultaneously.
“Wow!” Dar said. “They’re naked already!”
“They sure don’t waste time,” Sherry Lou added.
“Ahhhhh,” breathed a collective group sigh.
“I still think you need to keep Emma Abigail inside,” Flamingo told Keri.
“Well, she’s got to go the bathroom sometime!” Keri protested.
“She’s white. She looks like an animated cotton swab when she runs around. They’ll see her from a distance, and they’ll recognize her.”
Keri used her height to tower over Flamingo. “Starsky can’t even get her name straight, and you think he’ll recognize her?”
“Just ’cause he mixes up her name,” Flamingo insisted, “doesn’t mean he wouldn’t recognize her. He’s a detective. He detects things. And he and Hutch can both detect a little white fuzz ball they see every day when they’re home.”
“I’ll walk her around the front of our cabin, how’s that?” Keri said in the spirit of compromise.
“Works for me,” Flamingo agreed.
“This new footage is going to be great for my new vid,” Kat swore, working the camera array and zooming in for a night scope close-up. “They’ll die when they see this at SHareCon!”
“Ooooh,” said Mary Louise Fisher staring at the scene on Kat’s computer, “now that’s what I call a Golden Boy!”
Linda LCabrillo started fanning herself rapidly. “And let me tell you, my friends, while I am having a hot flash, it’s not a menopausal hot flash. Oh, Lordy!”
“Now, that is exactly why I traveled all the way from the Netherlands!” Moira said happily.
“You can say that again,” Robin agreed.
“Yes, and from Germany,” Moni chimed in.
“The trip from Canada is suddenly all worthwhile,” Dana sighed.
“And from Ypsilanti,” Lisa O. added.
“I’ll need a few more butt shots to make up for that trip through New Jersey,” Kath Moonshine said.
“I hear you, partner,” Glow said.
Ro saw Anne parked on the couch, reading her Nook, paying no attention to anything going on around her. “Annie, don’t you want to come see?”
Anne just glowered at her. “Believe me, I see enough of those two asses when I’m home.”
“Is anyone concerned that Starsky only brought beer with him?” Angel said worriedly. “That wasn’t very good planning on his part. Hutch needs real food, nutritious food, not just beer!”
“Don’t worry, Angel,” Suzan said. “We brought enough food with us to feed a third world nation. We’ll make sure they get fed.”
“Wait a minute!” said Anne. “We’re not home. We’re not even supposed to be here. So, we can’t be sending over food like we do back at VP. They’ll be fine on their own. They should have plenty of beer just for the weekend.”
“But Hutch needs real food!” Angel insisted. “Healthy food.”
“We could make up a fruit and nut basket,” youtooblondie suggested, “with some vegetables… and leave it on the doorstep with a note that says it’s a gift from the general store, so they won’t suspect it’s from us.”
“I think that’s a fine idea!” Angel agreed.
Anne closed her eyes. “Oh, yeah. Fruits and nuts. And vegetables. They won’t have any idea who it’s from. Just sign it, ‘Love, from the Fruits and Nuts.'”
Suzan patted Angel on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Anne can’t stay awake past nine. We could cook a Thanksgiving feast and she’d sleep through it. We’ll put some things together then.” Then she whispered to them, “I brought my own baklava just for Starsky!”
“That’s it! That’s it!” Londonmaid cried out suddenly, pointing to her computer screen. “April, that’s the perfect image for our new t-shirts.”
April Valentine was nodding vigorously. “Yes. Exactly as it should be. Hutch’s on top!”
“I knew there was something we could agree on,” Dawn said as they slapped palms.
“I owe it to him,” April said regretfully, “after Huggy conned me into producing those terrible icon t-shirts. I’m still embarrassed about that.”
“What in the world could Huggy have said to you to get you to produce all those shirts?” Londonmaid asked her.
“He told me it was for charity,” April said.
“You fell for that?” Nangoo said in dismay. “Have you met Huggy?”
“Apparently, he is his favorite charity,” April said, nodding wearily. “He caught me at a weak moment.”
“But April,” Nangoo pressed, “the picture was such poor quality. I’m surprised you would do that to Hutch.”
“Huggy said it was Rutger Hauer, and I believed him!” April protested.
“Because,” Sonia said dryly, “all those blond, blue-eyed white boys look alike, right?”
“Well, this image will help me regain my reputation,” April insisted. “Suzan’s touched it up a little, and adjusted the color…”
“I know Hutch likes green,” Sonia said sotto voce, “but I don’t think he’d appreciate the particular sickly shade the night scope casts on his Nordic skin tones. Nice job, Suzan.”
“The printer is just about done…” April said, pulling a transfer off the tray. “Okay, ladies, get a look at that.”
Every woman in the house gaped at the beautiful image of their two favorite nude men that April held in her hands, and a collective, “Ooooooooooh” rippled through the house.
***
Starsky’s head suddenly jerked up and he glanced around nervously.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Hutch protested. “Is this some new kind of wicked foreplay? You go down on me, get me to the razor’s edge, then jump away just to see if I’ll die of frustration?”
“You didn’t hear that?” Starsky asked, getting out of bed and going to the window.
“All I heard was you humming the Campbell’s soup song around my dick,” Hutch moaned, covering his eyes with his arm. “Are you coming back here, or do I have to play my own instrument to finish out this concert?”
“I’m serious, Hutch! I heard that sound again!”
Hutch sighed, wearily. “If you don’t get back in this bed, the ball’s gonna be in the air again, all right…”
“Not that sound! The other sound. The one we keep hearing at Venice Place. That sounds like the sigh of a giant, like a wind that blows no good, like an omen of scary shit this way comes. It’s that giant collective, ‘ooooooh’ sound we always hear….”
“I keep telling you that’s just our neighbor ladies—”
“At Venice Place, yeah, but I heard it here. And there’s no neighbor ladies for hundreds of miles! Hutch,” he turned to his partner, his erection wilting. “I can’t believe all I was worried about was bears when these woods could be… haunted!”
“Starsky, so help me, if I have to get out of this bed, I’m going to find Dawnwind’s harness and strap you into it, just so I can tie you to this bed so you’ll finish—”
“How can you think about sex at a time like this! When restless spirits roam the night—”
***
“Okay, ladies,” April said, as she took the transfer everyone was oohing over to her heat press. “All I’ve got to do now is preheat the press—” She leaned down to plug the heavy device into the wall socket.
“April, no!!!” Saint Anne shouted. “Don’t plug that—”
“Excitable bunch of ladies you’ve got here,” Zandra said to Verlaine, observing from a safe distance. She was a new recruit.
“Yeah, they get this way every two years,” Verlaine told her. “It’s fun… but a little tiring. And there’s no way to know what to expect.”
“They said it would be fun,” Willow, another new recruit, agreed, grinning, “but I didn’t think it would involve travel and voyeurism in the same trip!”
Zandra looked at her, confused.
“Two of my favorite hobbies,” Willow said. The two women high-fived each other.
“I’m really glad Chy.anne talked me into coming,” Krystinna said. “Because I would have never believed her if she’d told me about this later.”
“I wouldn’t miss this con for the world,” sockii said. “And I’m not even in this fandom. But where else are you going to get a ringside seat to a view like that?”
“What, Annie?” April said, standing up. “I couldn’t hear you while I was bent over.” She turned the heat press’s power on.
“NO!!!” Anne yelled, reaching for the device that was all the way across the room.
Without warning, every light in the place suddenly went dark.
“What just happened?” April cried.
“I tried to stop you,” Anne complained. “All these laptops, the Uninterruptable Power Supplies, the cell phones being charged, the VLA on the roof, it’s way too much power drain for this old system. When you turned on the heat press it was the last straw. Ladies. I believe we have blown a fuse.”
“This place has fuses?” Deb W. said. “Where the hell are we, anyway? 1960’s rural America?”
“Close enough. It’s someplace that still has a small town with dirt roads,” sockii said philosophically, “a general store that has everything that you need from medical supplies to allergy pills to French wires for the earrings I’m putting together, and cabins with fuses.”
“In short,” Sydni said, “we’re in the Twilight Zone!”
“No, we’re not,” Verlaine said, trying to reassure the newest neighbors. “We’re just in a Spelling-Goldberg fantasy of what small town America was like in the late 1970’s.”
“Okay, so I was off by a decade,” Deb W. said.
“Or Spelling-Goldberg was,” Sydni agreed.
“Without power, we’re going to lose a lot of reference material,” Lorraine said mournfully.
“Oh, shit,” Cyanne said, peering at her equipment. “It’s worse than that. My hockey team lost, and ladies, I’m afraid we’ve also lost the target.”
“Oh, NO!!!!!” a collective cry rang through the house.
***
Hutch sat straight up in the bed. His erection matched the posture of his spine. “What was that?”
“I told you!” Starsky insisted, poking his head out from under the covers. “This place is haunted.”
“Will you stop saying that!” Hutch said irritably.
“You heard it, too. That spooky sounding Nooooooooooo. Next will be a voice telling us, Get. Out.”
“That’s the last time I let you watch the all-night horror fest on cable,” Hutch warned.
“Yeah? Which one of us had nightmares the next night, brave guy? Hmmmm?”
“It was the Thai food you insisted on feeding us. The woods aren’t haunted, Starsky, and neither is Dobey’s cabin. There are no such things as ghosts!”
“Oh, yeah? If there’s no such things as ghosts, then how come the Sy Fy channel has an entire show devoted to ghost hunting that’s been on for eight seasons, and how come Dragon Con has an entire programming track devoted to it?”
Hutch had to stop himself from responding before he got stuck in another of Starsky’s circular arguments and the two of them ended up not speaking for 24 hours.
But Starsky wasn’t ready to let go of this particular bone. “And if there’s no ghosts, then what made that spooky sound, huh, Mr. Rational? And…and over at the school teacher’s cabin, the lights went out just before we heard that sound, and now there’s all these little flickering glowy lights over there. Like spirits wandering the night.”
“Will you stop that.”
“Come look!”
Hutch and his erection peered out the window. And peered again. Just as Starsky said, there were dim bluish lights scattered about the cabin across the lake, as if giant ghostly fireflies were floating through the rooms. “What the—?”
***
“Good thing some of us had our battery-operated tablets and iPads fully charged,” Vedette said as she walked around, using the light from her iPad to illuminate her way, “or we wouldn’t be able to see a thing.”
“Who was in charge of packing flashlights?” Flamingo demanded angrily.
Ro, CC, Taya, Angel, and Keri said simultaneously, “You were.”
“Oh. Well…good thing most of us have laptops, tablets, and iPads that run on batteries… and I’ve got the ‘Light’ app on my phone. Everybody watch out for the dogs. Don’t step on Emma Abigail. And watch out for my slippers! The left one is mean!”
“I’d be happy to make a run for fuses,” Krystinna offered. “Assuming… I can find my way back to the general store… and it’s open…” she glanced at her laptop to check the time.
“It’s too late for that,” Anne said. “The general store will be closed. I think we better shut it down for the night, ladies, and hit the hay. Tomorrow is another day. And I’m sure those two will find yet another excuse to be naked with each other.”
Peering at the blank screen, Glow grumbled, “This is not what I came all the way from Staten Island for.”
“I hear ya, partner,” Kath Moonshine agreed. The Netherlands, Canadian, and Ypsilanti faction agreed.
“Oh, dear,” said Angel. “How are we going to prepare food without lights?”
“The kitchen has a propane stove,” Suzan assured her. “And people have been preparing food without light for centuries.”
“I like the way you think,” Angel said. “And it’s almost nine o’clock!”
Within minutes, they heard light snoring coming from the couch.
***
“The little lights are all just winking out one by one,” Starsky said nervously.
Hutch sighed. “Just like when Tinkerbelle drank the poison in Peter Pan… Maybe we should clap.”
Starsky grit his teeth. “Okay, Mr. I-Know-Just-About-Everything-Except-How-To-Find-My-Way-Through-the-Woods-in-a-Car. If you’re so smart, what are those—?”
“Think, Starsk. Those are school teachers. Not only do they have laptops, many of which have batteries, but they also have iPads, just like you, and tablets, like me. I think they were running too many devices for that old cabin and they blew a fuse. That VLA alone has got to break the voltage bank. Now, will you please come to bed and save me from gangrene of the organ? I’ll be your best friend, and I promise to return the favor!”
Starsky couldn’t help but smile and sank slowly to his knees. “You already are my best friend! And I don’t need a bed to put a smile on your face.”
“No, babe, you sure don’t!”
***
“All is not lost, my sisters!” Tiger Tyger’s voice rang out through the darkened cabin. She had taken over the night scope duties from Kat who left to work on her battery-operated laptop, so she could finish her vid now that she had new footage. Tiger peered at the Dobey cabin through the night scope. “You’re not going to believe this… but this is as good as being in Venice Place. Right now, they’re doing it directly in front of their bedroom window. The view could not be better. Ohmigod, Hutch, you’ve got some pair of legs!”
Every woman in the place, except one, made a dash for where Tiger Tyger focused the night scope.
“Here, let me hook that scope up to the battery operated 36-inch monitor so we can all see,” Cyanne said helpfully.
“Oooooo, look it those boys go,” Val said, making herself comfortable in front of the screen. “That’s a mighty clear shot you got there, Miss Tyger. And to think I almost stayed at home.”
“Wow,” said Sstormc as she stared at the screen, “I’m really glad I only signed up for one day. Two more days of this and I think I’d die and go to… well, maybe not heaven…”
“I usually only come for one day myself,” Marisha said. “There can be too much of a good thing.”
Sstormc couldn’t pull her eyes from the view. “I hear you… This night alone could fuel enough stories to get me through the year. Jeez… lookit that… I didn’t even think that was physically possible!”
Marisha blinked as she stared at the boys. “Is anyone else getting hungry?”
“I’ll be in the kitchen if anyone wants to help put some food together,” Suzan said.
***
Bright sunlight poured through the window of the Dobey’s master bedroom. For once, Hutch didn’t rise with the sun. He’d lost his interest in fishing after the last time they were here, and, Starsky thought with a smirk, after their acrobatics last night, he suspected his partner would be out for a while longer.
Easing his way out of bed, he found his discarded red long johns and slipped into them. It was fall and pretty chilly outside. Now that morning was here, his fears about the haunted woods seemed as silly as Hutch said they were. Walking quietly out of the bedroom so Hutch could continue sleeping, Starsky wandered downstairs, wondering if Hutch thought to bring anything good for breakfast. Probably just boxes of granola, he suspected. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Hutch always forgot the milk.
Even though he’d only brought beer himself, he checked the refrigerator anyway. You could never be too careful about a fridge that once had snakes in it. He’d like to see Samuel Jackson handling snakes in the fridge! Opening the door, he stared at the contents for a count of five, then shut the door again. Shaking his head, he walked around the cabin once or twice then came back to the fridge. Taking a deep breath, he opened it once more.
He hadn’t imagined it. The fridge was full of food. There were at least two casseroles, an entire lasagna, a gallon of milk, a fully cooked meatloaf, and two pies, apple and boysenberry. There was also a gigantic salad in a big silver bowl with a bottle of what looked like homemade vinaigrette beside it. He shut the refrigerator again, and rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t really paid attention to everything Hutch had brought. Could he have packed—and unpacked—all this food without Starsky noticing? Well, probably, but did he? Unlikely. Because if he had, he would have bitched the whole time about how much trouble it was to pack and unpack all this home cooked food—
He walked away from the refrigerator. Forget about the fridge. Make coffee. Things will look different after—
A stainless-steel percolator sat on the small counter beside the stove, perking away merrily. The scent of aromatic hazelnut coffee filled the kitchen. Starsky just stared at it. Had he made coffee in his sleep?
“I need to go outside for a few minutes,” he decided. “I’ll go outside and walk around in the crisp morning air, wake up, and come back in, make some coffee, and figure out if Hutch brought anything besides granola for breakfast.”
He walked to the front door, knowing the bright sunlight was going to sear his eyes. He remembered from the last time that the sun was so bright, he never noticed the pentagram on the door till he fell down the steps and landed on his keister, staring up at it. He was ready this time. Squinting so the sun wouldn’t burn his eyes, he opened the door and stepped out, then immediately went sprawling ass over teakettle down the short staircase and landed on his keister.
“Well, consistency counts for something,” he grumbled, as he pushed himself up on his elbows. He’d managed to fall over a large object someone had parked right in front of the door.
Picking himself up and dusting himself off, he looked over at the thing that had nearly killed him. It was an incongruously large gift basket. It was filled to the top of the handle with beautiful apples of all colors, oranges, tangerines, grapes, and… broccoli? Then he noticed a head of cauliflower, some green beans, some leeks—who puts vegetables in a gift basket? It was all wrapped with yards and yards of cellophane, so nothing had fallen out when he’d knocked it over.
He picked it up. Even Starsky knew ghosts weren’t about to put food in your refrigerator or gift baskets wrapped in cellophane on your doorstep. He looked around. No paparazzi. Of course, if they had found them, he’d be giving them quite the show in his red long johns. Could Hutch’s internet groupies have found them? Could they be hiding behind the trees even now? No, that wasn’t likely. They’d be out here in force singing, “Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby.”
He picked up the basket. Heavy sucker! Then he found a note tied to the ribbon at the top. “With eternal gratitude, your friends at the general store.”
He frowned. The general store? They didn’t even have a produce section. He grabbed the basket and hauled it inside. The coffee smelled incredible. He decided this would be a good time to bring some to Hutch and let him know what was going on, so they could get to the bottom of it. Then he spotted a tray of various cookies he somehow walked past when he first left the cabin. Those cookies looked awfully familiar. The artfully arranged baklava next to the cookies looked even more familiar.
He poured two cups of coffee, set some cookies on a plate, and arranged the whole thing on a breakfast-in-bed tray Edith had left in a cupboard. Just as he was about to carry it upstairs, something caught his eye out the window. Leaving the tray, he walked over to get a better look.
He had a partial view of the cabin across the lake. A tiny white dog that looked like an animated cotton swab was running away from someone and barking like mad. Starsky had to laugh. Dogs loved humiliating their owners. That happened all the time back home—
Starsky stared as the little white dog ran back, narrowly evading capture. It was having a wonderful time, wagging its tail, barking, in full play mode. Things started falling into place. “Whaddya know. That looks just like little Abalone Emmagail! Huh! Wait’ll I tell Hutch.”
***
Hutch rolled over languidly, sensing the start of a new day. He smiled and stretched, then realized his arms and legs weren’t bumping into anything. Starsky was up already? He sighed. What a night! He never realized how much living in the lunatic asylum they laughingly called home inhibited him sexually. But neither of them had had any inhibitions last night! Starsky was like a wild man, like they hadn’t made love in months. Well, it certainly wasn’t anything he’d likely discuss on his twitter feed. He chuckled at that idea.
Suddenly, the bedroom door swung open and Starsky backed into the room, carrying a breakfast tray with coffee and something else Hutch couldn’t quite make out. Ah, cookies. He sat up in bed, putting the pillow behind his back, so Starsky could park the tray over his lap.
“Good morning, handsome,” Starsky said, and leaned in for a kiss.
“Mmmm,” Hutch answered, letting their first kiss linger, morning breath be damned. “Good morning to you, lover. You’ve been industrious. The coffee smells incredible. And I see you did manage to pack some cookies from home.”
Starsky smiled enigmatically, and bit into one, then took a sip of coffee.
Hutch followed suit. “Wow, these taste freshly homemade, as if they were baked last night.”
“Which they probably were,” Starsky said, smirking.
“Look, Starsk, I know you love me, but you’re not gonna convince me you got up after we made love—especially after the way we made love—and made me cookies. With what? A secret recipe on the back of a beer can?”
Starsky couldn’t stop smirking. “Hutch. I saw Abigail Adams in the woods just now.”
Hutch blinked. “You can’t be serious. You’re still convinced the woods are haunted? And now you’re seeing the spirit of John Adam’s wife, Abigail, roaming the woods! How much beer did you drink last night anyway?”
Starsky rolled his eyes impatiently. “Not that Abigail Adams. Nobody can see ghosts in broad daylight!”
“Oh, well, thanks for educating me on that complete nonsense.”
“I meant, what’s-her-name, Abbeytail Emmaline! You know. The animated cotton swab! Keri’s little dog! Why does anybody’s dog need two names, anyway? Half the time she doesn’t answer to either of ’em.”
“Are you talking about Emma Abigail? She doesn’t answer you because you never call her by her right name. What has this got to do with Abigail Adam’s ghost?”
Starsky closed his eyes. “I swear, Hutch, sometimes I think you like to act dense just to get on my nerves. Forget about Abigail Adam’s ghost! I saw Keri’s dog at the cabin across the lake! Is that clear enough for you?”
Hutch dropped the cookie he was eating. “Keri’s dog is here? At Pine Lake?”
“Yeah. Cookies taste familiar?”
He looked at his lap and picked the cookie back up. “Homemade fresh…”
“The VLA across the lake,” Starsky reminded him. “Their power outage. All the little battery-operated computers and tablets….”
“The people across the lake aren’t school teachers? They’re our neighbor ladies from VP?” Hutch felt the bottom drop out of his fantasy life.
“Well, let me put it this way,” Starsky said, munching on another cookie. “This is the same coffee we usually find hot on our doorstep every morning. The cookies are all too familiar, and along with the cookies was a layer of artfully arranged homemade baklava. The refrigerator is stocked with food we didn’t bring. And someone left a huge gift basket full of fruits and vegetables!”
“Who puts vegetables in a gift basket?” Hutch asked.
“Our friendly neighborhood VP vegetarians, I suspect.”
“This means… it means… last night, we weren’t alone!” Hutch couldn’t believe it. The only night of privacy they’d had in years, shattered!
“Wait a minute, buddy!” Starsky said soothingly. “They had a power outage, remember? Can’t do surveillance without the right juice. We were alone, last night, for sure. Trust me on that.”
Hutch shook his head, moved the tray and got out of bed. “I-I-I’m not ready to believe all those women drove from Venice Place all the way up here, installed a VLA on their roof, and did all that before we could get here.” Starsky started to say something, but Hutch stopped him with a finger. “I don’t want to hear a word about our side trip through the woods.”
“C’mon, Hutch, an organized group of boys scouts could’ve gotten all that done while you argued with the GPS!”
Hutch grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms from one of his suitcases and slipped them on over his bare butt. “I need more proof. I’m just not ready to believe this. It’s too crazy.”
“Come see the gift basket. Maybe there’s valuable evidence in it.” Starsky snagged another cookie and his coffee cup as they both headed downstairs.
Once in the kitchen, Hutch circled the gift basket as if there might be snakes in that. “It’s huge! How much do they think we eat?”
“More importantly, how much roughage do they think we need?” Starsky muttered.
Hutch tore open the cellophane and started removing the produce. “Leeks? Cauliflower? Who put this together? Mr. Green Jeans?”
“Trust me, Hutch, it’s all for you. And it was put together with love.” Starsky didn’t even attempt to hide his smirk.
Hutch found a small piece of paper wedged between an apple and a gorgeous head of broccoli. “What’s this?” He unraveled it. “I think this got in here accidentally. It’s all crumpled, like a draft of something.”
“Well, they didn’t have any power, so we’re lucky they didn’t accidentally pack Emmagail Abeline in it.”
Hutch tried to read the small paper. “I think it says, ‘Our Hero. He vaults from the stage, his instrument discarded, his legs nimble quick, his reflexes like a hawk’s, weapon extended—'”
“I’ve heard that one before!” Starsky said. “It’s from youtooblondie. She was working on it the night we busted that thief at Joe’s.”
“And you remember it that well? Must’ve really impressed you. I didn’t think you got free verse poetry. I always thought you were more of a ‘There-once-was-a-man-from-Nantucket’ poetry aficionado.” Hutch laughed at his own joke.
“Oh, yeah,” Starsky said, annoyed. “How about this? Roses are red. Violets are blue. You’re a jerk sometimes.”
“That doesn’t rhyme, Starsk.”
“Free verse poetry, buddy! Now, do you believe the VP neighbor ladies are across the lake?”
Shaking his head, Hutch continued to look through the basket. “I don’t know. It still seems so farfetched.”
Starsky looked over his shoulder as Hutch hit the bottom. “Ah-hah!” he crowed. “Evidence!” He plucked something small from the very bottom of the basket and showed it to Hutch. “Evidence even you can’t deny.”
Hutch stared, transfixed. There was no denying the positive evidence right in front of his face. Starsky had found a single, tiny, pink feather.
***
More than half the VP neighbor ladies were still asleep, when the sentry on guard duty sounded the alarm.
“Target is approaching at 12 o’clock!” Bluesky cried, focusing her binoculars. “Red alert! Red Alert! Damn! They’re coming up to the front door! What do we do now!”
“If we all just lay low and be quiet,” Flamingo said, “we might be able to convince them no one’s home!”
Suddenly, a furious spate of yapping broke the stillness of the morning.
Everyone peeked out the window, to find Emma Abigail jumping up and down on Hutch in greeting.
“Okay,” yelled Starsky as Hutch bent to pet the little dog. “The gig’s up, ladies. We know you’re in the there. Come out with your hands up!”
Flamingo glared at Keri.
“I was walking her out front like you told me!” Keri said defensively. “She heard Hutch’s footsteps and slipped her collar. You know he’s her favorite!”
Flamingo walked to the front door and opened it. “You may as well come in,” she said dispiritedly.
The two men entered and faced the sheepish looking women. “You had to follow us here?” Hutch said, while holding onto little Emma. He probably meant it to be a scold, but it was hard to take seriously while Emma licked his cheek.
“How did you know it was us?” Angel asked, looking perplexed.
“I want to know, too,” youtooblondie said.
Hutch handed blondie the draft poem. “But that’s only part of it.”
“Yeah,” Starsky said. “Roses are red. Violets are blue. Nobody puts broccoli in a fruit basket.”
“Will you stop that,” Hutch said.
“You sent food over there?” A voice emerged from the back.
Angel, youtooblondie, Suzan, and half the women in the place looked chagrined as Anne approached.
“After I specifically told you not to!” Anne seemed especially irritated.
“Oh, they didn’t just send food,” Starsky said. “They sent enough stuff for a bacchanal orgy.”
“When did you do all that?” Anne demanded.
“After you fell asleep on the couch at 9 o’clock,” Flamingo said.
“I did not fall asleep on the couch!” Anne insisted. “I was just resting!”
“You must ‘rest’ really hard,” Hutch said, “because Wolfgang Puck would’ve needed an entire staff to put together the spread they made last night in the dark.”
“Has Cyanne got the power problem sorted out yet?” Starsky asked.
The women again all exchanged embarrassed glances.
“Fixed it this morning with a new fuse,” Cyanne said quietly.
“And we recorded it all on fanlore once we were operational again,” Franzeska said proudly. “Didn’t we Carmen?”
Carmen poked her to try to get her to stop confessing.
“Well, we’re grateful for the power outage, at least,” Hutch said. “Y’know, sometimes, just sometimes, a guy would like a little privacy with his partner. At least we had that last night for a few hours.”
The women all stared at the floor, knowing if they looked at one another their guilt would give them away.
“And I know these last few days have been hard on everyone,” Hutch continued. “I’m sorry about that. I had no idea that telling my private guitar group about my appearance at Joe’s would create such a stir. Believe me, I won’t do it again. If our life ever gets back to normal—”
“Whatever that is,” Starsky said.
“I’ll be a lot more careful about what I reveal on line. I just hope we all might be able to go home in a few days and go back to our lives—”
“Oh, you can do that now,” Anne said.
“What?” said both guys simultaneously.
“What are you talking about?” Flamingo said. “We left home less than 24 hours ago, and the place was staked out with paparazzi.”
“That was 24 hours ago,” Anne said. “Everyone here lives on line. You should know nothing lasts that long on the internet. Hutch, you’ve been knocked off your pedestal by this guy.” She brought out her Nook, brought up a video and played it for them.
On the screen, a round-faced Korean singer sang and danced to a frenetic dance number. Everyone stared, entranced.
“His name’s Psy, he’s Korean, and this little number has just made the Guinness Book of World Records for the most watched YouTube video of all time! So, trust me, the paparazzi are gone, and the internet chicks are gone, and it’s safe to go home.”
“Anne, you sound a little stressed,” Starsky said, worriedly. “You’re usually the calm one in the group.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m stuck here in a cabin with fifty women and one bathroom. You’re damn right I’m stressed! I wanna go home!”
Flamingo patted her on the arm. “Well, it sounds like we can all go home… we just have to take down the VLA and…”
“We’ll leave you to it then,” Hutch said, handing off Emma Abigail to Keri. “Oh, and uh… thanks for the food!”
Fifty women called after them, “You’re welcome!” as the boys started back for the Dobey cabin.
***
“Hey, Hutch,” Starsky said as they walked back to their side of the lake, “was that guy in that video saying something about ‘condom style’?”
Hutch shook his head. “No, Starsk. He was saying ‘gangnam style’.”
“I can’t believe that guy knocked you off the YouTube charts,” Starsky insisted. “You’re so much hotter than him! And when you sing, I can understand everything you say. I could only understand a few of the words from that guy’s song.”
“That’s because it was in Korean, Starsk. There were a few English words, but the rest was in Korean.”
“So…you ready to head for home?” Starsky asked as they approached the cabin.
“I don’t think so,” Hutch said. “I have a better idea.”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t we pack up all our stuff, including the great food the ladies made for us, and head for San Diego. We can rent a beach house and hide out for a few days.”
Starsky smiled. “You think we can do it if nobody’s watching?”
“I think we could try.”
Starsky grinned. “Roses are red, violets are blue, wherever you go, I will go, too. Men are from Mars, women from Venus, and sometimes, my Hutch, you’re such a genius!”
“Hey, that actually rhymed,” Hutch said with a smile as they made their way back to pack up their things.
“You play your cards right, schweetheart,” Starsky did his best Bogie imitation, “and we’ll make poetry all night long.”
Hutch slipped his arm around his partner’s waist. They both pretended not to notice the dozens of female “Aaahhhhs,” the sighed from the surrounding woods. Linked closer than an android and its recharger cradle, they entered their cabin and closed the door firmly behind them.
The End
“VenicePlace Stories” were usually written for that year’s SHareCon zine.
2002: How Hutch Saved the World as We Know It or The Not Ready for Fan Eyes Author by Rosemary. Hutch needs help from the SHareCon con-comm when Starky publishes an unsellable fanzine.
2004: Partners in Adversity by Flamingo and Rosemary. In the Starsky and Hutch movie, released that year, the “real” Hutch sells a Torino to the “new” Starsky over the protest of the “real” Starsky. On VP, we decided that replacement Torino was only one of the Starsky’s cars, that he had one for every day of the week. It became our “fanon.”
2006: Afternoon Delight by Flamingo and Rosemary. Starsky decides to create a song vid to prove he and Hutch are the One True Pairing.
2008: Dirty Stories and Dirty Underwear or: Steve Jobs Is the Great Satan by Flamingo and Rosemary. Hutch overhears Starsky’s attempts to win a PodFic challenge and completely misinterprets what’s going on.
2010: The Droid Wars by Flamingo and Rosemary. Starsky and Hutch pit their newly acquired smart phones against each other.
2012: Viral Hutch by Flamingo and Rosemary. A brief clip of Hutch and his guitar on the internet wreaks havoc on the SHareCon ConComm and everyone in VenicePlace.
2014: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes… by Flamingo and Rosemary. Starsky, spending too much time on social media, becomes confused by modern terminology regarding sexual identity and sexual relationships.
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