“SOUL BONDED”
(By Kreek©june2005)
Chapter 1
The blue-eyed man grabbed his hand. He felt the
warmth of his touch and saw the love and concern reflected in his eyes. The man
whispered his name: “Starsky...” The voice familiar, the sound soothing as it
continued, “I won’t be coming out… not this time.”
Starsky sat on a bed as the sound of the words
faded into silent darkness, making him feel… lost.
“No,” he answered. “Don’t go…” But the blond man disappeared. “No!” Starsky
yelled and woke up, the scream caught in his throat.
Sweat poured from his face as he sat up heaving
to catch his breath. His heart was pounding in his chest and his mouth was dry.
“Having that same dream again?”
It took him a moment to wake up completely and
straighten out his thoughts. He felt a hand on his arm and noticed his wife
Belinda looking at him with her brown eyes he loved so much. He nodded. “Same one.” He turned to sit on the bedside and wiped the
sweat from his brow with his left hand. “I don’t know what it means… I have the
feeling that it’s important somehow.” He looked back at her.
“Dave,” she said seriously. “If it’s that
important, you’ll find out what it means, sooner or later.”
He sighed, nodded, and decided to give it a
rest. “I’m gonna get some water. Want some?” She
shook her head, and by the time Starsky closed the bedroom door behind him, she
was already fast asleep.
Starsky fumbled his way in the dark over to the
kitchen where he picked up a glass and filled it with water. The cool liquid
slid down his throat, clearing his thoughts. He had been having this dream a
few nights in a row now. The first night he hardly remembered any of it. But
recently things seemed to linger, mostly feelings like familiarity, love… and
despair.
Tonight, however, something else had surfaced,
triggered by the dream. An emotional response he had not expected. It was the
feeling of utter loneliness, as if he’d lost something, or someone, very dear
to him. It was so strong that it awakened him. But he did not have a clue as to
why he would feel that way. Overwhelmed by it, he could not bring himself
to tell his wife.
His life, up till now, had been pretty
standard. After having moved out of his parents’ house, a job at a small
hardware store had paid for the bills, nicely. And when his parents had died he’d
started to travel. After a couple of months he’d met Belinda who was about to
start up an Italian restaurant of her own in a small Canadian town on the West
coast called
He filled his glass again as his mind trying to
justify his feelings. They didn’t make any sense. There was nothing in his life
that could account for the dreams he’d been having. The only thing that could
make him feel as lonely as he did now was if he’d lose Belinda, or the
restaurant.
“Maybe it’s a premonition,” he thought, feeling
quite tired for he had not slept well all week. But somehow he knew that was
not the case. The dream already started to feel unreal.
He drank the last of the water and
went back to bed.
Chapter 2
The little boy looked hesitantly at the blue-eyed blond man kneeling in
front of him.
“Take it,” the man
said warmly, trying to put a five dollar bill in the boy’s hand. “Buy your
mother something nice, huh.”
Slowly the boy’s
features turned into a shy smile. He momentarily forgot the lousy street he was
on, the passing cars, the huddled people rushing by who were protecting
themselves from the rain that poured out of the grey cloud-laden sky. He
reached out and touched the raw paper of the dollar bill with his small hand,
slowly closing his fingers around it. The man let it go, smiling at him.
The boy suddenly
noticed the gun belt strapped underneath the brown leather jacket. His eyes
went large as he clutched the bill to his chest. The man seemed to notice his
shock and closed his jacket.
“It’s all right. I won’t hurt you. I’m a cop.”
But the boy only saw
the gun, the danger, and the consequences that his short life had been riddled
with so far. He turned around and ran, away from the fear and the pain he did
not yet comprehend.
And away from love.
But he still had the
dollar bill, and he knew exactly what kind of present his mother would like.
“You can’t save ‘em
all, Hutch…” The evening had just started. Darkness came early this night, and
Starsky stood huddled in a doorway, watching the scene a few yards ahead of him
with a slight smile.
His partner sat
crouched for a moment, then looked up. “Well”, he said, putting his hands on
his knees and standing up, “I can try, can’t I?” He walked over to the doorway,
while glancing back to see the boy disappear in an alleyway.
“You know what, Starsk? That boy reminds me of a friend I use to have:
scruffy, curly hair, always cruising the streets. My parents hated him, but he
had a heart of gold.”
Starsky looked at him.
His hands were buried deep in his cardigan’s pockets and his collar was up to
protect him from the rain. Little rivers of water still managed to trickle down
his neck, however. His jeans were soaked as were his shoes, causing him to
shiver. “How ‘bout the friend you have now, with a heart of gold, cruising the streets, curly-haired? I’m drowning, man!”
Hutch smiled. With his
white blond hair and light brown leather jacket soaked through, his black turtle
neck and brown trousers were remarkably dry. It annoyed Starsky to no end.
Finally Hutch seemed to notice his miserable appearance “C’mon, I’ll buy
ya a beer.”
That put a smile on
Starsky’s face. “Yeah? Okay. Well, c’mon White Knight,
don’t stand there in the rain too long. Ya might get
wet.” The brunet turned around and practically bounced inside the bar they had
been standing in front of, neatly avoiding a clever retort from the blond.
Still smiling to himself, Starsky knew that all Hutch could do was shake his
head and follow him inside.
The woman sitting at
the window looked out into the pouring rain. Rivers of water slid down the
glass of the dirty window in its useless attempt to get in. The bar was warm
and quiet. Not many people had dared to venture out in this downpour.
The lady liked the
rain. It settled in perfectly with the dark and grey mood she had found herself
in ever since her husband, Marc, died over a year ago. She had tried to go on
then. And after a few months she actually succeeded in doing just that.
However, the dead feeling inside her never quite seemed to go away. She’d
learned to live with it, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been
happy, the last time since she’d genuinely smiled.
She was watching the
blond man on the street. The whole scene with the little boy defrosted her
heart a little bit. Her eyes followed him as he headed up to the bar and
entered it along with another guy. This one, a brunet, had apparently been
seeking shelter from the rain in the doorway.
The two men came in.
Her breath caught in her throat when she was watching the blond and the brunet
making their way over to the bar. What came into view caught her completely by
surprise.
She saw something she
had never thought she would see again. She definitely had not expected it to
show up on a dreadfully dark grey day as this one, and in two men at that. A connection… One she had
once shared with Marc.
It blinded her, and for the first time in over a year she smiled.
She looked at the blond
again, studying him more closely. Suddenly her smile faded. What she had seen
scared her.
Somehow she had to warn them.
Chapter 3
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged
in. If it isn’t my two favourite detectives,” Huggy
said, putting down the beer pull he was cleaning. He walked over to them. “You
look like ya all could use a drink.”
“Yeah,” Starsky
agreed, jumping on a bar stool, while Hutch sat himself down at a table in
front of it. “That and a towel.” Huggy
threw the sour-looking detective the desperately needed item. Starsky took off
his vest and started drying his hair. “Thanks Hug,” he said gratefully. “You
saved my life.”
“Don’t I always,” Huggy grinned.
Hutch caught the towel Starsky threw at him and said, “A beer and water
please Hug.”
Starsky picked up his
heavy, water-filled cardigan from the bar and muttered, “I would think you’d
have seen enough water for one night, Hutch.”
“Hey, hey, don’t do
that!” Huggy shouted in irritation when Starsky
vehemently started wringing his vest above the floor. “I spent the entire
morning cleaning the floor!” He pointed an angry finger at Starsky: “I have you
know that The Pits has never been so clean.”
“Really?” Starsky mocked, while curiously looking
around. Except for a lady at the window and a couple of regulars in the back,
the place was deserted.
“Have fun all you want but at least this Huggy
Bears is clean.”
Knowing Hutch’s
preferences for all things healthy and sane, Huggy
put the glass of water on the table for the blond and shoved the beer in
Starsky’s hand. How Hutch had ever ended up with having Starsky, the beer and
cold pizza type, for a partner was beyond him.
“Huggy, any news?” Hutch asked, elbows on the table, gently
sipping the water.
“Damn
the man looks tired,” Huggy thought, checking out
the signs of sleep deprivation around the blond’s eyes. “Starsky’s not doing any better. This case’s really getting to them.”
Huggy hesitated. The question brought him back to reality. “Yeah well…”
Lately the city had
been wrecked with a string of murders. All users. All kids. To the casual observer it looked like they had
OD’d. However, autopsy reports confirmed there had not been enough dope in
their bloodstreams to make an OD a very likely possibility.
Fortunately, the crime
lab had found something else in the bodies of the victims: a mixture of
compounds they could not make heads or tales of. While most elements remained a
mystery to them, the lab did manage to identify several trace elements of
lethal poisons. In minute amounts these poisons could be addictive, and
eventually would kill.
Four kids had been
found dead so far. All of them located within Metro’s district. The last one of
them had been the small teenage girl, Micki.
That was two days ago.
Starsky had told Huggy they’d found her inside a
garbage container. He had not told the
bar owner all the grim details, but Huggy could tell
by the absence of Hutch that night that this murder had severely shaken both of
them up. Huggy recalled Hutch had taken a liking to the
girl no more than a few years ago. She had even tried to stay clean for a
while. But old habits die hard.
Finding that small
girl inside a garbage container, tossed away like dirt, had caused the duo to
pick up their pace. They had been working on the case almost twenty-four hours
a day now. However, by the looks of things, they weren’t any closer to anything
resembling a solution than they were when the murders had first started.
“Well, guess that’s about to change…” Huggy thought grim.
“You ain’t gonna like it,”
he said putting himself on a stool next to Starsky.
“Huggy.”
The impatient, tired note in Starsky’s voice was not lost on the bar owner.
“Get to the point, will ya?”
Huggy took a deep breath and braced himself. “Word
is,” he began slowly and then shook his head. “Oh man…”
“Huggy!” Hutch urged.
“Okay. Someone new is
in town. Someone pretty Big. Has every pusher and dealer going undercover, even
the crime-lords. Kids have to turn to this new one now to get whatever it is
they’re craving, ya dig?”
Starsky leaned in
closer, resting his left arm on the bar and putting his chin in his left hand.
Apparently he was in no mood for waiting games. “Does this person have a name?”
Big brown eyes shot
from Hutch to Starsky and back to Hutch again. Huggy
slowly answered. “Karl Samuel …Forest.”
Silence descended as both detectives visibly froze.
Huggy noticed the shock in Starsky’s eyes and saw him shooting a glance at
his partner.
With the glass of
water suspended between the table and his mouth, Hutch was staring in slight
shock at the both them. Then he sat
back, his leather jacket creaking. His cold voice seemed to make the ambient
temperature in the cosy bar drop a few degrees. “
“Related. A brother. Or so it seems. ”
Starsky looked at him.
The brunet’s rich blues eyes were coloured with an inner turmoil betraying both
his hate upon hearing the name and his concern for his partner. “A brother?” he
asked, lowering his voice to a dangerous level.
Huggy nodded, keeping his eyes on the silent Hutch.
“You’re telling me,”
Starsky continued, “that the man who strung my partner out two years ago has a
brother? One who just happens to set up shop right in the middle of our
district?”
Huggy turned his attention away from the blond,
which he suspected was precisely what the New Yorker in front of him had meant
to do. “Yeah man. Whatever Karl’s plan is, it doesn’t take a genius to figure
out that it has something to do with the two of you.” He shrugged. “But that’s
all I know man…”
The emotion in
Starsky’s eyes slowly diminished. He lowered them to stare into his glass of
beer, thinking. Upon hearing his partner’s voice, he looked up.
“We owe you Hug,”
Hutch said, nodding his thanks. However, Huggy could
tell by the far off look in the blond’s eyes that he wasn’t really aware of the
bar owner’s presence anymore. Hutch stood up and walked outside.
Huggy sighed. He had a bad feeling about this. The
last time they had dealings with a
“Sorry man,” he said
to Starsky, whose brooding features were now facing the door behind which his
partner had just disappeared.
“Yeah,” Starsky answered him. “Yeah”.
Huggy sighed again. He picked up the glass he had been cleaning and went back
to work.
Chapter 4
Starsky didn't like
what he'd just heard anymore than the blond did. He
sighed. Knowing Hutch, it was not a bright idea to go storming after him
right now. His partner needed some space, if only for a few minutes.
Jumping off the stool,
he quickly drank the last of the beer. Deep in thought he did not notice the
woman walking up to the table Hutch had just vacated. She took a seat in the
now empty chair.
He put down the empty
glass and was about to check up on his partner when he suddenly noticed the
lady looking up at him. She was an older woman, a brunette with a pretty face
whose soft features and wrinkles around the eyes told him the familiar story of
the hardships of life. The large green eyes fixed him to the floor.
“I’m sorry to bother
you, but I would like to ask you something.” Her calm voice sounded both
intelligent and wise.
Starsky, gallant as
ever, couldn’t find it in his heart to ignore her and walk out. Though she was
an older woman; she was a woman and, as a man, you did not ignore a woman.
Apart from that there was something in her eyes that seemed to unsettle him a
great deal. Curiosity got the better of him.
Knowing his partner
was probably brooding in the
“Sure Miss…?”
“Delilah, but you can call me Lilly.”
“Starsky, David Starsky,” he said, taking the seat in front of her.
“I saw your friend helping out that little boy earlier.”
Starsky frowned. “Oh?”
She nodded at the window seat.
“Oh,” Starsky said, realizing she must have seen it from there.
“That was a very nice thing to do.”
Her green eyes,
friendly and curious, somehow seemed to pierce right through him, intensifying
the uncomfortable feeling he was experiencing.
“Well, we know where that boy is coming from. We’re just trying to
help.”
Now it was Lilly’s turn to frown at him.
“We’re cops. Detectives,” he hurried to explain.
“Of course,” she said
smiling, as if she had already known that they could not possibly be in any
other profession.
“Look Lilly,” Starsky
started, trying to get to the point. It was beginning to annoy him that she
seemed to know all about them, and he only knew her name. “You just wanted to
know why my partner gave that boy some money, is that it?”
Her smile faded. She
stared at him, her eyes clearly showing that that was not it. Starsky could
tell she was sizing him up, pondering over her next words and trying to decide
exactly how to say them.
Lilly kept her silence
and looked like she was not going to speak anytime soon. Starsky stood up to
leave. “If you’ll excuse me ma’am, I …”
“Do you think…?” she
suddenly interrupted him with a soft voice and a serious look on her face,
“that he can go on without you?”
Starsky froze. She pierced him with her green eyes and waited patiently
for his answer.
Confused by the sudden
question, not to mention that annoying yet friendly glare, he deliberately made
it look like he misunderstood. “The little boy?”
She smiled. “No, your partner… would he make it without you?”
Starsky was not known
for his incredible patience when threats were uttered against him or Hutch.
With all these weird murders going on lately, plus the recent news that a
She visibly shrank
away from him, obviously shaken by his reaction. She stood up, putting some
distance between the two of them. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Well, what did you mean?” Starsky let the
anger show in his voice, while slowly sitting down on the table.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try anyway, sweetheart.”
She was silent for a
while before speaking. “Sometimes when I see people I can… tell certain things
about them.” She began pacing the floor.
Starsky eyed her suspiciously. “So can I, it doesn’t take much of a
genius…”
Much to his surprise
she cut him short, going straight to the point. “I can sense more than others
Detective. When you two came in…” She stopped her pacing and looked up. Starsky
didn’t move an inch as she walked over to him and gently grabbed his arm.
“You’re soul-bonded,” she carefully stated, almost as a warning. “Did
you know that?”
Staring at her,
Starsky was not sure whether to believe what he had just heard or not. He
decided to just play along for now, knowing there was more to life than what
the eye could see. He and Hutch had both dealt with their share of psychics and
other weirdoes. But most of those had a screw loose. Most of those had wanted
them dead. Without a doubt, these cases had caused a lot of fear and anguish
for the both of them.
However, the fact
remained that she had hit the truth. He knew that, without ever having to think
about it. And in his eyes that made her very dangerous.
Cautiously he freed his arm from her grip.
“Yeah,” he said carefully, sizing her up, “I know that.”
Somehow she did not
look dangerous, more concerned than threatening. He had to give it to her, she
stood her ground and did not step back as he leaned forward, pointing a finger
at her. “And if you know that, you must know the answer to your first question.
What’s your point?”
She looked at him,
sadness colouring her features. “I’m just trying to warn you Detective, his
future feels very, very lonely.”
Starsky jumped off the
table, stating in a cold angry voice, “Look lady, whatever premonition you
think you’ve got going, I am not going to die.”
She didn’t flinch. “I never said you would.”
“You’re saying he’s going to…?”
“I’m not saying
anything, I just…,” her voice softened to a whisper and her eyes unfocused as
she apparently tried to access her feelings. “Something’s going to get to him…”
She looked up with a confused expression on her face. “That’s all the warning I
can give you.”
From outside a horn
suddenly sounded and he realized his partner was getting impatient. Taking a
deep breath, Starsky wrenched his eyes free from hers, hesitated briefly, and
then walked over to the door.
“Just remember…” she
started to say before he exited the bar. She walked over to him and grabbed his
arm again, emerald green eyes piercing his blue ones. “Your soul will never
forget… remember that.”
Chapter 5
Starsky pulled open
the door on the driver’s side of his red
Entering the car he
found Hutch to be already there, watching the huddled pedestrians on the
street. Starsky closed the door and sat back. “Are you all right?”
Hutch turned to look
at him. “Yeah,” he replied. “Look, let’s just see if Dobey’s
got any info on this okay?”
Starsky looked at him.
Focusing on the case instead of on the fear, as Hutch was doing right now, was
a good reaction. Detective instincts kept their heads clear. It had saved their
necks a couple of times.
“Okay,” Starsky agreed, started the engine, and drove off.
He could feel the
tensed anger building up in the two of them at the fact that Forest, a name his
partner had tried so hard to forget, was out and about now.
To top it all off,
Lilly’s words still rang in his mind, increasing his anxiety tenfold. He
decided right then and there that it would be absolutely pointless to worry
about what she had said. There were more important things to worry about right
now.
Hutch shook his head:
“Starsk, I can’t believe someone would kill all those
kids just to get on our nerves, I mean what’s the point.”
“I don’t know,”
Starsky answered, trying to keep his eyes on the road. He kept his emotions in
check and instead let his partner vent his anger on him.
Hutch settled down a
bit and sighed. “You know, sometimes it seems like we’re not making any
difference at all out there on the streets. We pick up one creep and in comes another. So we pick ‘em up
again, and again, and again.”
Starsky smiled grimly. “Then that’s what we’ll do Hutch, that’s what
we’ll do.”
The moment Starsky
opened the door accessing homicide, Captain Dobey’s
voice shattered through the room. “STARSKY, HUTCHINSON… GET IN HERE!” Hutch
sought after the source of the booming voice and was just in time to see Dobey disappear inside his office.
Smiling at his
partner, Starsky held the office door open for him. “You know, we better solve
this case in the next twenty-four hours partner. Even the Cap’s working late.”
He followed Hutch into the room. It was furnished with a couple of desks which
as usual were cluttered with files and long overdue paper work. “You know, I
actually think he might’ve lost some weight over this recent case of ours,”
Starsky continued.
Hutch shot a
conspiring glance in his direction, both men thinking the same thing. The blond
couldn’t help but feel a smile forming on his lips. Starsky grinned and said,
“Yeah, guess we better make that forty-eight hours!”
Hutch took off his
jacket and threw it across his desk. He had his gun belt strapped over his
black turtle neck and tried to loosen the belt up a bit by tugging at the
leather straps. Then he walked over to the water tank, poured himself a drink
and followed his partner into the Captain’s office.
Dobey had sat down behind his desk. A stern look
made it clear he was in no mood for jokes today. “I have some news for you
two,” he started, his voice surprisingly mild.
Hutch almost smiled at
that. Their Captain always tried so hard to be the tough stern commander, but
never quite succeeded with the both of them.
“We know Cap’n.” Starsky interrupted him,
anger apparent in every word.
Hutch eyed his partner
for one moment. He knew Starsky had kept a lid on his temper for his sake. Up
till now.
“You know?” Dobey asked, clearly surprised.
Turning his attention back to Dobey, Hutch
nodded. “Huggy told us.”
Dobey looked from one to the other. “That snitch of
yours is gonna be the death of me someday.”
Starsky walked over to
the desk, put his hands down and leaned in to face his Captain. Knowing what
was to come, Hutch sank into a chair in the corner.
“What we want to know
is…,” he heard his partner begin dangerously calm, “how this could’ve happened?
The department knew about the Forest Family’s reputation… the ruthless drug
dealing kind.” He leaned in a bit closer. “And what you’re telling me now is
that no one has bothered to keep an eye on
Dobey sank back in his chair. Hutch noticed the
captain had unconsciously put some distance between him and the angry detective
standing in front of his desk. Dobey crossed his
fingers “The Feds were keeping an eye on him, but when he kept quiet, they let
him loose. They assured me that there was no chance in hell that the Forest
Family would ever pick up their old habits again.”
Starsky exploded. “Their old habits! Captain! The last time their ‘old habits’
surfaced I had to pick up a broken Hutch from the street! They’d drugged him,
strung him out!” The words were accompanied by a stiff pointing hand in Hutch’s
direction.
“Starsk,” Hutch intervened, raising a hand,
not sure as to what to say.
His partner kept
ranting, oblivious to Hutch’s objections and the slight pain that surfaced in
his eyes at the graphic description Starsky was now throwing in their captain’s
face.
“It took him weeks to
recover, and you’re telling me the Feds think they’ve changed? You saw what
they are capable of!” He was shouting now.
“Starsky,” Hutch sighed.
At the softness of his
voice Starsky turned around and their eyes locked. Hutch saw his partner’s
anger and frustration subsiding a bit.
The brunet turned
back, pinning Dobey with an icy stare. “Men like that
do not change and you do not let them loose on the streets,” he finished.
“I know!” Dobey retorted. “I was there,
remember?”
Starsky was silent for a moment.
Standing up, Hutch put a hand on his friend’s arm while leaning over Dobey’s desk.
“Captain, Starsky’s
right, men like that don’t change. Men like that want revenge.” The softness
had all but disappeared from his voice, and a hard unemotional tone had taken
over. “And if he so much as picks on a stray dog, Starsky and I’ll be on him so
fast he’ll never know what hit him.”
Turning, Hutch looked
Starsky in the eye for a moment and then left the room. As he entered the squad
room, he heard Dobey yelling his orders behind him.
“You do that!”
“We will, Cap,” Starsky said. He followed Hutch out the door, slamming
it shut behind him.
Hutch picked up his
jacket. His partner sat down at his desk and put his feet up. “Well,” he said,
trying to lighten up the mood a bit. “We can’t do anything about it tonight.
You’re going home?”
“Yeah.” Hutch answered with a slight smile. Starsky
nodded, understanding. “I’m tired Starsk, see you in
the morning.”
Starsky watched his
partner leave. He could not help but remember the wreck Hutch had become after
The strong
sympathetic, caring man that was his partner had turned into an addict, a user
with only one objective, to get more of the ‘happy stuff’. Lucky for him his
survival instincts had kicked in and had made him escape. Lucky for him Starsky
had found him, crumbled on the streets.
And then the cold turkey had begun …
Starsky’s optimism
would not let him stray down that path for too long. His partner had recovered
due to sheer strength of character. But Starsky wondered how deep the scars
really ran.
“Deep,” he guessed, “but you move on.”
He sighed, put his
feet down, and picked up a form to fill out today’s report. It was going to be
a long night.
Chapter 6
Starsky parked the pick up truck outside the
grocery store to pick up some supplies. His truck was a dark red one, and for
some reason he had grown quite attached to it. It had faithfully helped him
keep the restaurant running in the last few months. Whistling cheerfully, he
entered the grocery store.
“Hey
Hank!” He shouted as he walked passed the shelves
picking up what he needed.
“Hey Starsky, are you going to
rob my shop clean again, huh?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “Something like that.”
“There’s some new stuff in the
back ya might want? It came in last week.”
“Thanks man,” Starsky nodded politely, and
headed towards the shelves located in the back of the store.
Hank had been right. There were some things
here which hadn’t been here earlier. This was a small town, way out of range of
Then he stopped dead in his
tracks.
Just in front of him, dangling form a shelf
support were some light blue, four-legged stuffed dogs. They were small things
with funny looking tufts of hair on their heads. He stared at them; they
brought back some kind of memory.
Slowly, he raised his hand,
carefully touching one of them.
A memory rushed upwards, an image of a desk, a
feeling of pain, intense pain… in his stomach, and the realisation that he was
going to die. He reached out for someone. A hand grabbed his. Looking up, he
stared into a pair of rich blue eyes.
For a moment the image lingered.
Then the memory faded.
Breathing heavily, Starsky found himself
leaning against the shelf unit, clutching one of the blue stuffed dogs to his
chest. He was sweating, and shaking all over.
“Hey man, are you all right back
there?”
Starsky managed to stammer an
answer, “Yeah, I just dropped the damned box.”
He stood there for a while, trying to make
sense of it all. Having dreams was one thing, but to have these images occur in
the middle of the day was quite another. He didn’t understand it. The images,
the feelings, they all felt so real. But they didn’t make sense. He didn’t even
own a desk for instance. He hated the things, so he had never bothered to get
one installed.
Looking down at the blue thing still clutched
in his hands, he realised he experienced that same feeling of loss again. Not
only that, a moment ago he’d been sure he was about to die. Why? “Poison,”
his mind answered. But that was ridiculous. He had never been poisoned in his
life! Such things just did not happen in real life.
Slowly he picked up his box from
the floor.
The blue thing reminded him of blue eyes. He
stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. Blue eyes…
But the memory started to fade, leaving nothing
but the overwhelming feeling that something was missing from his life. Sighing,
he put the dog in the box. “Guess you’re coming home with me.”
Chapter 7
“Hey pal, ready for
duty?” Cheerfully Starsky walked into Hutch’s front door and headed straight
for the fridge. Hutch leaned against the kitchen sink, wearing a green shirt
with a flannel black and white shirt on top and brown pants underneath. He was
drinking a white substance, containing ingredients which Starsky wouldn’t even
start to guess at.
“What are you doing?” Hutch said with a smile.
“Getting breakfast blue eyes, what d’ya
think.”
“Starsk,
why don’t you have breakfast at home like normal people? You come in here,
every morning, expecting me to have dead slices of pizza, and a year supply of
beer in the fridge … I don’t even like pizza.”
Starsky, who was
wearing a blue T-shirt, blue shirt, jeans and right now his brown leather
jacket instead of his vest, picked up exactly those items out of the
refrigerator. Smiling, he straightened up, winking at Hutch, “I knew ya loved me.” He
jumped up onto the kitchen sink, continuing the conversation with his mouth
full. “Ya know… for a man who hates pizza, you order
it a lot,” he teased.
Hutch did not answer
to that at first; He put the glass down and picked up his jacket. “For your
information I did not order out for that one last night, I cooked it myself.”
Starsky was genuinely
surprised, and took another bite. “Oh yeah? Hmm, it’s
pretty good. What did ya put on it?”
Walking past him, his
partner replied with a straight face. “Same stuff I put in my cocktails every
morning.”
The brunet stopped
chewing, and nearly choked on the bit he was about to swallow, before managing
to spit the whole thing out into the sink.
“God, Hutch! You can’t put desiccated liver on a pizza! It’s sacrilege!”
Hutch just smiled. “You comin’?”
Frantically, Starsky
tried to wash away the taste of the pizza with gulps of beer, and jumped down.
Still muttering, he followed his partner out the door.
They took Hutch’s car.
The brunet had the
feeling that his partner needed to drive in order to keep his mind off current
events. Trouble was, that Hutch’s car, an old Ford, was exactly that… old. But
it had character. Starsky had to give him that.
The morning passed
completely uneventful. No signs of any killings, any crimes, or any criminals
for that matter. There were no dealers on the streets, and now that Starsky
thought of it, there were no users either.
He figured the
department knew where
“Zebra three come in please.”
Bored to tears right
about now Starsky picked up the receiver. “Starsky here, what is it sweetheart.”
Smiling, Hutch threw him a sideway glance. He shook his head.
“Switch to Tack Two for Captain Dobey.”
“Sure thing dear-”
The blond snatched the
receiver from Starsky’s hand, before the flirting could become serious.
“Hey!” he protested, “I wasn’t finished!”
“Always the charming
one, Starsk…” Hutch interrupted him. “You know, one
day you might find yourself getting married.”
“Well,” Starsky said as he switched channels on the radio. “Who knows?”
Hutch shook his head again, pressing the receiver’s button. “Yeah, what
is it Cap?”
The stern voice of Dobey filled the car’s interior. “There’s been another murder,
Starsky’s raised an eyebrow at Hutch.
“The Feds, Captain?”
“Yeah, they sped out of my office like two burned turkeys, when they got
wind of this.”
Hutch threw the receiver to his partner, and slammed the car into a
higher gear.
“Cap’n,”
Starsky managed to ask, as he was trying to put the light on top, while at the
same time being pushed back in his seat at the sudden increase of speed. “Did
they talk to you about these murders?”
“They’re not
interested in the murders at all Starsky. All the Feds want is the dope causing
them! They told me, in no uncertain terms, that they expect us to notify them
if, and when we make a bust. Now see that you get there before they do!”
Starsky looked over to Hutch before answering. “Ten four Cap.” He put
down the receiver.
They picked up speed as Hutch rushed them through the light midday
traffic. “Starsk?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think it’s just a matter of revenge buddy, there’s more going
on here.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, knowing exactly what his partner meant.
Huggy had all but told them
Unless the drug was meant to do something other than kill.
All of a sudden Starsky’s growing anxiety brought Lilly’s words back to
mind.
“His future feels very, very
lonely… Something’s going to get to him…”
He stared at his blond partner. The feeling of unease started to grow.
Apparently, Hutch picked up on it, and said, “I don’t like it.”
“Nope… me neither.” He
turned away from his partner, staring in the direction that they were going.
A thought began to
form in his mind as he pondered over Lilly’s words. A bad feeling began to rise
in the pit of his stomach. It was nothing more than a hunch, but what if the
drug was just being tested? Tested, until it was perfected, and could be used
on…on…?
He barely suppressed a
sharp intake of breath as his thoughts led him to a disturbing conclusion.
It’s not us he
wants at all. He thought with sudden clarity. It’s Hutch… He just wants Hutch!
Chapter 8
They walked passed the
uniforms standing in the hallway by the open door, which clearly was the centre
of all the commotion.
Entering the small
living space, Hutch took in the surroundings. The room was poorly furnished.
The furniture that was there looked worn out with use and age. Almost at once,
the blond noticed the woman sitting in a chair in the back of the room, sobbing
and shaking. Then his eyes strayed to the body, lying face up on the floor,
eyes wide open.
Hutch stopped dead as
he saw who it was that had apparently died in the middle of this woman’s living
room. He recognized him instantly, for this man had once held him tight as
another had injected hypo after hypo into him.
It was the man he had
kicked in the head when he jumped out of their car to escape. The one man
they’d never been able to find again. According to
The blond forgot where
he was, a very old apartment building not to far from Huggy’s
place. A rushing sound filled his ears as he forgot to breathe.
He snapped out of it
when he felt his partners hand on his arm, realizing Starsky had unconsciously
reached out for him as soon as he’d assessed the situation. Meanwhile, the
brunet was drilling the police officer on the spot.
“It’s a clear cut case,” the officer answered him. “She shot him, said
he was trying to kill her.”
Hutch’s eyes locked
onto the women. He walked over to squat in front of her. “I’m Sergeant
Hutchinson, this is Sergeant Starsky.”
When she didn’t
respond, he gently cupped her chin, lifting it with his right hand. She was
pretty, if you forgot the sunken eyes, the red rims around them, and the matted
copper coloured hair. “Why?” he asked, knowing that right now would be his best
chance to get some answers out of her.
She looked up at him
as her brown eyes seemed to notice him for the first time. He felt her calming
down a bit, placing some trust in him. He let go of her face and waited. She
looked over at a bouquet of flowers, decorating a dresser near the wall. The
colourful greenery looked totally out of place in this otherwise neglected
room. Out of place… but beautiful.
Starsky walked over to the dresser, smelling the small white and yellow
flowers.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”
The woman’s voice was amazingly deep and warm. She has character, Hutch thought.
She sighed. “My son
gave them to me… It made me think things over… Made me want
to stop.”
“Stop what?” Hutch asked carefully, not wanting to scare her off.
She pulled up the
sleeve from her beige blouse, showing them her right arm. “Stop this,” she
whispered.”
Starsky looked at it
in anger, releasing a deep breath as her arm clearly showed the pin pricks of
needles, the markings of a user.
Hutch couldn’t help
but grab the woman’s arm more tightly than he’d meant to. “He tried to fix you
up?” He asked in a voice matching the firmness of his grip, while stiffly
pointing his free hand at the body.
Realizing he was hurting her, the blond loosened his grip.
She nodded, still
shaking. “He gave it to me for free. Can you imagine that?” She gave him an
empty smirk, her eyes didn’t laugh. “He only wanted me to agree to keep using
his stuff regularly… And I agreed. Of course I agreed! Wouldn’t you?”
She looked at Hutch
when she said that, startling him, slowly realizing that she was just speaking
in general. Forcing himself to calm down, he let go of her arm, and stood up.
“Anyway… I changed my
mind, I didn’t want it anymore. So he… he tried to force me to take the shot… I
didn’t want it, and th… then
he tried to k… kill me.” Her eyes shot over to the knife which was now
carefully being sealed in a bag. “So… so I shot him.”
Hutch tried to keep
the uneasy tremble he was experiencing from showing. Luckily the woman didn’t
notice. But of course Starsky did.
“Look,” his partner
started to say as the brunet moved over to her, giving Hutch some breathing
space to recover. “Can you tell us anything about his connections? Where he got the dope from, for instance?”
“You believe me?” A glint of hope
shone in her eyes as she looked from Starsky to Hutch.
Hutch massaged his neck, and nodded. “Yeah… We believe you.”
“Helen,” she said. “Name’s Helen.”
“Helen.” Starsky
stated, demanding her to look at him. “The dope, d’ you have any idea where he
got it from?”
She shook her head. “No, he just mentioned it was something new.”
Both men looked at
each other for a moment, knowing full well that if she had taken the shot, the
body lying on the floor would have been hers. She’s a bit older than the other victims though, Hutch silently
communicated.
Starsky’s eyes conveyed his answer. Guess
they ran out of kids to play with.
Unaware of how lucky
she’d just been she continued. “But… at the time I didn’t care what it was.”
“And now you do?” Hutch asked, slightly sceptical.
She looked back at
him. “I just started using, Sergeant. So part of me could still think straight.
My son… When he came in with those flowers?” She smiled again. This time her
eyes grew moist. “He could hardly hold on to them. The bouquet’s so big and
he’s so small.”
She paused for a
moment as she apparently tried to keep her voice from shaking. “It was the most
beautiful sight I’ve ever seen,” Helen sighed. “I knew then that I wanted to
stop. But the…the man said if I’d just take my shot, I’d forget about the pain
I was in. My… my soul would forget everything.”
Hutch was too busy
watching the distressed woman to notice the slight surprise forming on his
partner’s face upon hearing those last words. He also missed the uneasy glance
Starsky shot at him a second later.
Helen glanced over at
the body, which by now had been covered up. “I don’t want it anymore…I… It
hurts but…,” she looked up at them again. “I just don’t want my son to have… have a junky for a mother.”
Out of the bedroom a
curly headed boy was allowed to step into the room. He rushed over to his
mother. It was the boy Hutch had met on the street. The blond suddenly
understood where the money for the flowers had come from. He closed his eyes,
held his hands up at Starsky conveying he would back out for a while, and
walked out the door.
Innocently the boy stared after him, asking a frightened question, “Is
he mad?”
“No,” Starsky answered looking at the two of them. “Just a bit confused,
that’s all.”
A uniform had told him
earlier that the woman’s son had been present in the house at the time of the
murder. Luckily the boy had not seen a thing. The officers had wisely kept him
in the bedroom until the body was covered up.
Starsky smiled and
winked at the kid who had climbed onto his mother’s lap. “Hey, that’s a nice
bunch of flowers you got for your mother!”
The boy gave him a big
smile in return. “Think so?” He positively glowed as for a moment he’d
apparently forgotten all about the horrible scene in front of him. “I got the
biggest one I could find!”
Starsky looked up at
Helen whose face now showed a weak smile. “They’re beautiful kid, just
beautiful.”
Chapter 9
“You got anything?”
Hutch asked from behind the steering wheel as Starsky jumped into the
passenger’s seat.
Starsky replied surly,
“Feds kicked me out before I could question her.” He stared questioningly at
the apartment building. “They were really adamant, weird huh? I’m telling you
Hutch, something doesn’t feel right,” the brunet turned to face him. “Anyway,
Feds are in charge of her case now, I’m afraid the statement she gave us, is
all we’re going to get.”
“Great,” Hutch put his head back against the head rest and closed his
eyes.
“Hey, the body was connected to the Forests, right?”
Without moving the
blond answered, “Right.” He took a deep breath. “He was the guy that went
missing after we busted Ben, remember?
Starsky nodded. “Yeah. So, if Karl was doing this guy’s supplying, then
Karl’s also the one doing the murders.”
Hutch opened his eyes,
glancing at his partner. “We don’t have any proof of that, Starsk.”
He shook his head. “We’re missing something here buddy. If Karl wants us so bad
then why doesn’t he show himself? Why all the killings, without letting us know
he’s doing them? And what’s with this drug anyway?” He stopped; raising his
head as an idea suddenly dawned on him. “It’s almost like he’s waiting for
something. You don’t think he’s just… testing the drug, don’t you?”
Starsky didn’t look the least bit surprised when he spoke. “Experiments?”
“Yeah.”
The blond suddenly
became aware of a slight unease in his partner’s demeanour, an unease that was
quickly being covered up by a sudden rise in anger colouring Starsky’s next
words. “Maybe. One thing’s for sure though… When we do
go in, I want the Feds with me.”
Hutch slowly sat up, turning at his partner in disbelieve. “What?”
“If you’re right, he’s
playing with us. If this whole thing is a set up I want to have some decent
back up.”
“Starsk,”
Hutch frowned; his partner was not the kind of man to get scared. There were
only a few circumstances in which he would, and these were not it. But despite
the angry tones, right now that was exactly the way he looked… scared.
“And another thing,”
Starsky said, pinning him with his midnight blues. “Yes, I think those drugs
are meant to do something really nasty, and I don’t want you anywhere near them.”
Hutch stared at him in
dumb shock. His partner looked away. “Starsk, you
know I’m not some rookie cop. I’m not stupid. What makes you think I would -,”
he stopped, as an answer to his own question was formed in his mind. “You know I’m clean, don’t you?”
Starsky’s eyes snapped
back onto his in irritation. “Yes, of course I know that. And you know I know.
He sighed. “It’s just… something Helen said. That’s all. I keep having bad
feelings about this case.”
Hutch carefully
studied his friend, knowing that wasn’t the whole truth. “Yeah,” he slowly
agreed. “I know what you mean. So we’ll be more careful this time round.”
“Hey, I’m always
careful.” Starsky said sounding quite offended, but Hutch knew his curly headed
partner was just trying to lighten the mood.
Hutch smiled sitting back again. “Well, we could always pay Karl a visit
I guess…”
“When we have the
evidence, we visit, not sooner,” the brunet spoke, all of a sudden dead serious
again. He reached for something in his back pocket.”
Hutch frowned. Hearing
those words coming from his partner’s mouth almost seemed as if someone else
was doing the talking. Starsky was usually the first to go pound on the perp’s front door. Not now though, and he knew no amount of
persuasion would change the brunet’s mind. When his partner got stubborn, he
got stubborn. Hutch closed his eyes knowing full well what his friend was
doing. He’s doing his mother hen act
again, he thought agitated, but decided to let it go for now.
“Starsky, even if the
lab confirms the compound in the syringe found at Helen’s matches the dope
found in those kids, all we got is a very lucky girl and another dead
body. What Starsk!”
Annoyed he opened his eyes when his partner kept waving something in front of
him.
Starsky smiled, triumphantly waving a small, leather bound book in his
face.
Hutch looked at it. “Hey, an address book?”
“Yep, took it off your friend Jones right before the suits came in.”
Before Hutch could
drill his partner about the concept of withholding evidence from the Feds,
Starsky had already picked up the transmitter. “Zebra three to Control, I’d
like to check on an address… yeah. That’s
“We’re not exactly going by the book this way,” Hutch sighed again.
“It is by the book!” Starsky said with a wide grin, holding up the
address book.
“Not funny Starsk.”
“Oh stop complaining
will ya. Can we get out of here? I’m liable to catch
a cold just sitting here. This thing is drafting all over the place.” This ‘thing’ meaning the LTD.
Hutch shot him a death
glare before starting the engine. His mood dropping as fast as the weather did
outside. It had started to rain again. The car sped off as he released his
anger on the accelerator. For the second time that day Starsky was thrown
backwards in his seat.
The brunet noticed Hutch’s temper, and carefully said, “Hey, Blintz?”
Having to watch where he was driving at this speed, Hutch quickly
glanced sideways.
Starsky continued
seriously, “Perhaps you can save ‘em all ...” and
with those words he suddenly put up his right hand, showing a very sour looking
daisy. Its white pedals and yellow heart drooping sadly as he wiggled it in
front of Hutch with the grin again.
Hutch couldn’t help
himself; he had to laugh at that. His partner had obviously taken it from
Helen’s flower gift.
“I think it’s too late for the flower though, partner.”
“Yeah?” Starsky’s expression changed into a sad one as
he wiggled the pathetic little stem and gave the flower a scrutinized look.
“Well… you win some, you loose some,” he replied and stuffed the daisy in his
partner’s shirt pocket.
Hutch shook his head,
forever wondering how Starsky always managed to cheer him up again.
Chapter 10
This early in the evening the restaurant was
still empty. Starsky sat at one of the tables in the back, staring at the blue
dog he’d just purchased. There was something there, he could feel it.
He closed his eyes. For a
fleeting moment he could touch it.
Concentrating, he opened his eyes and fixed
them on the blue of the dog. It felt the same as just walking out of the door,
and knowing you’d forgotten something, but you didn’t know what. He closed his
eyes again as suddenly a feeling came rushing up out of nowhere, a feeling of
loss, of broken bonds.
He started shaking, unable to pin down his
thoughts or his feelings onto something substantial.
“Dave?”
Starsky snapped his eyes open.
“What is that?” Belinda stood in front of him,
looking from the stuffed dog to her husband. “Are you all right?”
Starsky’s voice shook when he spoke up softly,
not looking away from the dog. “I’m missing something here,
“What do you mean?”
“Something…some…one,” he gasped, tears almost
welling up. He looked up at her. “Someone is missing…”
She frowned, concern flashing over
her features. “Dave.”
Starsky sighed. He couldn’t pinpoint it. No
need to worry his wife with these feelings. “I’m all right… Forget it, huh?”
Why couldn’t he remember?
Deep, very deep inside, something
stirred.
Chapter 11
Looking down at the newspaper clippings, an uncomfortable feeling
started to nag at Hutch.
The address Starsky
had found on the inside of the address book, turned out to belong to a quiet
place in a residential area. Having made certain the house was empty; they’d
carefully started digging for clues, and found the clippings in an old desk
situated in what must have been the study in the back of the house.
A couple of the
clippings lying in front of him were about the recent murders, a few about
He hadn’t felt like
this since the night he’d picked up
He stared at the note,
the writing on it making his blood run cold. The note simply stated an address,
his address, on Ocean. A short three letter message was written underneath: stop when delivered.
His heart sank to his
stomach as his mind read the truth behind those words. They had him targeted
all along. And oh yes, they intended to stop their hits on those poor users,
but only when they’d gotten what they wanted: him.
“Hutch.”
Startled by his
friend’s call he looked up, quickly putting the note in his shirt pocket. If
Starsky got wind of this he’d blow off the whole case. As much as he loved the
brunet, he wouldn’t let him mother-hen him to death.
His partner was
studying a piece of writing paper situated on a small table near the telephone.
Hutch walked over and
leaned in behind his partner to try and read the small print, written in nearly
indecipherable hand writing. He whistled in surprise.
Starsky spoke up,
keeping his eyes on the paper. “Yeah, we better get this to the lab. I’ll bet
you a million dollars that the things on this list mount up to the contents of
those drugs.”
“It’s probably a
grocery list for whoever had to do the shopping,” Hutch stated uneasily,
studying the ingredients. “This stuff is meant to kill, buddy.”
Starsky looked up,
apparently sensing Hutch’s worries. “You mean those kids? I still think there’s
more to it than that… Something doesn’t add up Hutch.”
“It’s a non-detectible
killer Starsk, what more do you want? No wonder the
Feds are interested in this.” Hutch snapped.
Starsky rewarded him
with a penetrating stare. For a moment Hutch was sure Starsky could see the
note in his pocket. Hutch’s features softened as he read the concern in the
other’s eyes. “Sorry.”
Without saying a word
the brunet slowly turned his attention to the paper again, thoughtfully turning
it over. “Look what we have here: a delivery address.”
Hutch followed his gaze. “Ben’s old place?”
“Ain’t that a surprise,” Starsky remarked, and
headed for the door.
“I thought a cavalry of Feds checked that place out?”
Starsky turned. “Right, so I figured we pay the FBI a little visit.”
Hutch frowned. It
wasn’t like Starsky to use such an elaborate detour when he could get the
information using a far more direct course of action.
“Starsky, we’ve got enough evidence to search the place ourselves.”
His partner’s silence
wasn’t lost on the blond, who immediately realized what was going on.
“Dammit
Starsk, I can handle it! One way or the other these
killings have to stop, Forest or no
Starsky walked over to
him, grabbing his arm. “Look, something really weird is going on here, and I
don’t like where this investigation is heading. We could be walking into a
trap.”
“That’s never stopped you before and you know it.” Hutch stated cold.
A moment of silent
communication passed between the two friends, before Starsky finally let go.
“All right,” he said. “But we’re gonna clear this one
with Dobey first, partner.”
“Meaning we’re going to get the cavalry to join us?”
“Yep.”
Hutch didn’t argue the
point again, besides, if Karl really was bent on
killing him, if this was a trap, having an entire contingency of federal agents
at your back wasn’t such a bad idea.
The next morning had
all of them in place at Ben’s estate, including the supposedly sufficient back
up needed. Two cars were sitting beneath an elaborate
overhang of trees just outside the driveway.
“That’s it?” Starsky
eyed the men in disbelieve through the open passenger’s window of the expensive
looking black government car. “Just the two of you?”
The two black suited
men sitting inside, who had introduced themselves as Special Agents Donalds and Michaels, were both slightly bald, and at least
a decade Starsky’s senior. Apparently they were all the FBI had to spare right
now.
“It’s of our opinion
that this house is empty, Mr. Starsky.” Donalds,
sitting closest to him motioned to the large estate with its two wings and the
elaborate gardens and swimming pool on the other side. “We checked it out ages
ago.”
“And
what if it isn’t, huh? It’s
big enough to hide the entire west coast syndicate for God’s sake.”
The agent rolled his
eyes upwards. “Our men are good, Detective. They don’t make mistakes.”
Starsky leaned in
closer. “Well, I hope you’re right, ‘cos if you’re
not, we’ll all be walkin’ into a trap.”
“What’s the matter,” Donalds mocked. “Don’t
you trust us?”
“With the fate of this country? Yes. With our lives?
No.”
“Gentleman,
gentleman,” Michaels cut in. “This is getting us no where. Now, I suggest we
quit the bickering, and go do our jobs. Sergeant, you and your partner take the
back, there’s a service entrance there that will lead you to the kitchen, that
way you’ll bypass main security, if there is any. Donalds
and I will take the front. We’re able to get in unnoticed. We’ll meet in the
middle. Any questions?
Starsky pulled back from the car window, letting the two men exit their
car.
He didn’t like this
situation one bit. Something was off, way off, and the feeling of foreboding
only grew stronger as he looked at his partner sitting in the
They had no tangible
evidence whatsoever that Karl was after Hutch. All Starsky had, was his
Detective’s instinct coupled with Lilly’s warning, and the name of a
Besides,
professionally speaking they wanted these murders solved, regardless of the
risks they had to take. And the blond’s thoughts on this were the same, of that
he was sure. It was what made him, made them both of them such good cops.
Just
another day on the job, He
thought grimly.
Through this all Hutch
kept uncharacteristically silent. He watched his partner’s heated discussion
with Donalds from the safe position of the
passenger’s seat inside the
Slowly he dropped the radio
receiver back into its cradle. The information Dobey
had just given him over the radio, together with the note he carried in his
pocket, mounted up to a conclusion he could no longer deny. Deep down inside he
knew he was right.
He started to shiver ever
so slightly. The horror of what had happened to him a few years ago at
He thought back to his
partner’s previous actions, especially his mother henning.
Starsky had suspected all along there was more to this drug then its killing
capacity. He’d known it was really Hutch that
He probably knew way before me. I should‘ve
known. He all but physically tried to keep me from going anywhere near this
house. No wonder he’s giving those Fed boys such a hard time. Two of them is
not gonna be enough.
Hutch took a deep
breath and closed his eyes as he thought of the lab results his Captain had
just given him. The lab had been quite clear about one thing. The compound was
meant to kill all right, but only the mind, not the body. It was a fate worse
than slavery, worse than death. And it was what they had in store for him.
It scared the shit out of him.
But fear or not, he knew his duty.
His inner turmoil
wouldn’t settle down so easily though. It warned him, shouted at him, tried to
protect him from doing something stupid. But just as he’d ignored Dobey’s advice moments ago to cancel the search, he ignored
these ominous feelings.
As much as Hutch hated
the situation, he knew they needed to stop these senseless killings. And if
that meant facing some ghosts from the past, and going into this house with too
little back up, then so be it. As he’d said to Starsky before, he was a cop
first.
Chapter 12
Hutch exited the
Starsky nodded, doing the same routine with his Beretta. “I am now. We
take the back.”
They made their way
around the house, staying close to the perimeter, avoiding the tall windows and
glass doors. After a minute or so they arrived at a small grey black door,
which Starsky recognized from Donalds’ description as
the service entrance.
The brunet picked the
lock using his pocket-knife. Carefully he opened the door to step inside,
followed by his partner. They were greeted by a long empty wide grey corridor,
bathed in a cold white light originating from strip lights hanging from the
ceiling. The lights had turned on the moment they had opened the door. As the
door closed softly behind them, they moved deeper into the corridor.
Hutch hesitated.
Starsky seemed to
notice the lack of movement behind him, stopped and turned around. “What’s the
matter?”
The blond just looked
at him. Obviously worried Starsky took the few steps back needed to get in line
with his partner. “Are you all right?”
“Starsky…” He didn’t know what to say, just what he
suddenly felt; an overwhelming surge of impending doom.
Perhaps it was the
silence of the empty bleak corridor in front of him, or perhaps it was just his
partner’s overly concerned behaviour these last few days. The way Starsky had
insisted that something was wrong, that something would go wrong if they were
to go in. Almost as if the brunet‘d had a
premonition…
And all of a sudden Hutch knew…he wouldn’t be coming out again.
“Promise me…” he
started, trying to accept the inevitable. “…if something happens to me, you get
yourself out of there.”
Starsky looked around,
purposefully trying to ignore the subject. “What are you talking about? I’d
never leave you and you know it. Besides, nothing‘s gonna
happen. As Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck said, ‘the house’s probably empty’.”
The joke was
completely lost on the blond who grabbed him by the arm. “Starsky, I mean it.
Promise me.”
“No.”
The short stated
answer was followed by an unnerving silence, telling Hutch at once his partner
was serious this time.
Starsky’s eyes
softened, putting his hand on the blond’s, still resting on his arm. “You’re
shaking?”
Hutch pulled back.
“Yeah…” Realizing they weren’t going to go anywhere before the brunet had his
answers Hutch delved into his shirt pocket to give him the note.
Starsky eyed him
suspiciously before he began reading it. “’Stop when delivered’.” He quoted. He
looked up, crumpling the piece of paper, angrily throwing it onto the floor.
“You think they’re waiting for you? Is that it?”
Hutch didn’t trust his voice enough to speak and looked down.
“And if they are? What? You’re gonna…
cooperate?
No answer came.
Frustrated Starsky marched ahead a few paces. “What about,” he turned, “me and
thee… Huh? Buddy? What happened to that?”
Hutch still couldn’t answer.
“Hutch, what would have happened if I had given in to Prudolm’s demands, huh?
Hutch’s head snapped up. “You did give in to his demands.”
Starsky marched up to
him. “Yeah, and if I recall this correctly, you wouldn’t leave me then,
partner. And I sure as hell won’t leave you now, so you can drop the plan.”
“It’s not something
I’ve planned, Starsk.” Hutch retorted angry. “Believe
me. I’ve got no intention of giving them anything, not if I can help it.”
Now obviously close to
panic Starsky’s voice raised a couple of octaves. “What makes you so sure
they’re waiting for you up there, huh?”
“I just…”
Hutch’s sad look convinced the brunet more than anything.
“…know.”
“Fine, I’ll call this off.”
“No!” If we pull out now, more kids will end up dead. I’m a cop, Starsk. I’m going in!”
This time a silent
Starsky conveyed the message that he wasn’t convinced in the slightest. He
looked away in anger. “Hutch, I can’t let you…”
“Look, I won’t give
myself up without a fight. You know that. I’m not a fool, but if we don’t do
this now, the killings will go on. We owe it to those kids Starsk,
to Micki, to Helen. We can’t let ourselves be
intimidated by the Prudolms and the Forests, or any
number of criminals walking the streets out to get us.”
Starsky turned his
head to face him again. Although fury mixed with worry was still evident in his
eyes, his voice was soft when he spoke. “All right, but I’m not going to let
you out of my sight, blondie.”
Hutch gave him a grim smile.
“And quit with the
doomsday talk. That can get ya killed.” Starsky
sighed, looking his partner straight in the eye. He reached for the radio.
“This is Zebra Three, we’re in position.
His partner didn’t see
Hutch closing his eyes behind him in resignation. He proceeded to unlock the
safety of his Magnum. Starsky was right. This kind of thinking could get him
killed. Or worse, get his partner killed. Better to keep focussed in the next
couple of minutes.
Through years of
experience he managed to lock away the dread as the cop took over.
Starsky spoke four more words into the radio. “We’re going in.”
Chapter 13
The long grey corridor
exited upon a massive kitchen. Pots and pans which had once been shining
brightly with the spark of freshly cleaned kitchen utensils, now hung unused
from the ceiling. Their copper and metallic colours dull with a years worth of
dust. Behind him, Starsky heard his partner coughing as the man accidentally
brushed passed one of the pans, creating a dust cloud that viciously settled
down on the blond.
The brunet turned to shoot his partner a shushing look.
“It looks like Donalds is right,” Hutch
whispered. “This place hasn’t been used in ages.”
“Uhuh,”
Starsky agreed, walking up to the big doors separating the kitchen from the
dining room, purposefully keeping his partner behind him. Hutch sure had picked
a fine time to show him that note. They both knew they had no choice but to
ignore it right now and go through with the plan. But when we get back
None surprisingly the
dining room was also empty. The soft red carpet dampened his footsteps as he
motioned for Hutch to follow him through sheet covered chairs and tables, over
to the other side of the room where they reached a couple of ceiling-high, oak
wood doors. He eyed the blond, telling him he was ready to face whatever was
behind it.
Hutch pushed the doors
open, revealing the grant entrance hall. Right across from them the front oak
wood doors stood wide open. A white woollen carpeted staircase leisurely wound
its way upstairs. There wasn’t a living soul in sight.
“Where the hell are Donalds and Michaels?” Starsky whispered, stepping onto the
white tiled marble floor. “We should have met them by now.”
“Maybe they went upstairs.” Hutch guessed.
Starsky decided to
check the stairs first, before searching the rest of the ground floor. He
walked over, carefully looking up. He knew Hutch wanted to make sure the only
other adjoining room, which apparently led deeper into the house, was empty.
Sure enough he sensed his partner walking over to it.
But the moment Hutch
did that, the massive, oak wood front doors behind them drew to a close.
Starsky standing with one foot on the stairs, his head still craned upwards,
snapped around upon the sound vibrating through the entire building. Two guys
build like sumo wrestlers were standing guard in front of it, aiming their semi
automatics.
Diving behind a
pillar, Starsky was just in time to see his partner diving into the room he’d
been heading for, before all hell broke loose around them. The bullets of the
automatics shattered tables, vases and pictures alike. Between the flying projectiles
the brunet managed to take aim and return the fire.
The Sumos took cover behind another pillar, focussing their
attention on the room Hutch had dived into. The moment Starsky saw him peeking
around the corner, they started shooting again, forcing his partner to pull
back. Strangely enough they left Starsky alone.
Suddenly he heard his
partner’s gun go off a couple of times. Damn,
he thought. Someone must be pinning him down from the other side
of that room.
A shadow above him
alerted him just in time to look up and see Donalds
standing at the top of the stairs, firing at the doorpost behind which Hutch
had taken position. Surprise, surprise, He
thought bitter, firing two shots in Donalds’
direction, forcing the Agent to stop shooting and take cover. I bet the one pinning Hutch down is
Michaels.
Donalds came out of hiding and started aiming for the doorpost again.
Why the hell is he ignoring me?
Starsky figured out
what was happening the moment he tried to get to Hutch. They were trying to
separate them. They were all slowly drawing into Hutch’s location. He heard his
partner fire round after round. He counted them, two, three, four...
The sound of the Magnum made his heart clench in fear every time he heard it.
Starsky was still being ignored, except for the Sumos,
who were obviously meant to keep him in his place.
He suddenly realized that if he didn’t help Hutch soon he would be too
late.
Determined to get at
his partner’s side Starsky let his police instinct take over. He fired a couple
of shots at the Sumos as he dove from behind the
pillar to an elaborate large marble flower pot which housed a palm from floor
to ceiling. Heaving, he heard Hutch’s fire stop and Starsky knew his partner
had momentarily run out of bullets.
Making a split second
decision he yelled to get everybody’s attention, rolled, came up, shot a round,
rolled and ran, managing to get into the room Hutch had taken cover in. The
room was big, its floor was covered with an elaborate plush yellow carpet, a
few small mahogany tables told him this was just another hall way. He looked at
his partner standing just behind the door.
“Starsky…” Hutch
whispered, having reloaded the Magnum. “I’ve only got a few rounds left.”
Starsky nodded grimly
as he changed the clip on the Berretta, fishing a spare out of his jacket and
locking it in place. “Where’s Michaels?”
“Making sure we don’t
try anything in that direction.” Hutch said eying the door opposite of where
they both had entered. “And I don’t think he’s the only one back there.”
Starsky wondered for a
moment what kept these guys from moving in, unless they wanted them alive… and
in one piece. It wasn’t much of an advantage, but it could give them, give
Hutch, a fighting chance. “Run for the front door, I’ll cover you.”
Hutch looked at him. “I’m not gonna leave you
here.”
“They’re after you, blue eyes.”
“Forget it.”
“They’re under orders
not to hit you, and they’re ignoring me. I’ll try and keep Michaels and Donalds here off our backs and you do the same with the Sumos over there. We’ll both be out of this place in no
time.”
Although he let Hutch
take a moment to gauge their chances, Starsky knew they really didn’t have any
choice. They could try and work their way past Michaels or go back through the
diner, only to run into God knew how many others. Whoever had set this up had
covered all their escape routes. Of that he was sure. Their only real option
was the front door. “All right,” Hutch said. “On three.”
Starsky studied his
friend. There was something in his eyes he hadn’t seen often. Fear. It wasn’t like Hutch, not like him at all.
“Ready?” the blond asked, unlocking the safety of his Magnum once again.
“Ready,” Starsky answered.
On his partner’s
silent mouthed ‘three’, they burst into the entrance hall. Starsky slammed the
door closed behind him with his foot, effectively shutting out Michaels. Donalds tried to keep his eyes on Hutch but failed when
Starsky’s fire nicked the gun out of his hand.
The brunet noticed
with satisfaction that he had been right, neither of the Sumos
tried to actually hit them. They just tried to keep them pinned. Nevertheless,
one of them was closing in on his position alarmingly fast.
Hutch managed to
disable the Sumo still standing closest to the door with a calculated shot in
the leg. He took another dive, brought up his gun coming out of the head roll,
and stopped.
Starsky, too busy at
his own end was momentarily distracted as he saw his partner frozen in the
middle of the entrance hall, aiming at an unseen foe hidden from the brunet’s
view by a wide, white pillar. “Hutch!” He yelled.
“What are you doing?!”
His partner slowly raised the gun out of firing range.
Without the blond’s
back up fire Starsky knew they were fighting a loosing battle. He suddenly
found Donalds walking over to Hutch, who quickly took
aim at the man.
“You don’t want us to kill him, now do you Hutchinson?” A new voice
spoke up.
This one sounded
achingly familiar. It wasn’t
He took a second to
look at the door. There stood the curly headed boy, guarding it with the
innocent look of a child; an elderly man was loosely holding onto the boy’s
arm.
Reaching his partner
Starsky felt him tremble, felt Hutch’s gun tremble. “Hutch,” he hissed,
recognizing the man as
“I can’t do it, Starsk,” Hutch spoke hoarsely.
“I can’t let them kill that boy…”
He nodded slightly.
They were both fighters, both too much a cop to quit and give up when a
situation looked hopeless. He knew Hutch would go on, would want to go on…
until death. But… the boy…
Starsky looked over to
the doors again. They were effectively surrounded, but it didn’t diminish the
effect of support he threw into his voice as he said, “Whatever you do… it’s up
to you.”
Hutch looked back at
him, giving him an almost imperceptible nod, and closed his eyes. He turned his
head to look at Karl, and slowly lowered his gun. “All right,” he said to the
man. “All right…”
Starsky put his hand on Hutch’s arm as he grimly let the Beretta being
taken out of his hands.
The boy recognized the
blond man. Looking at him he felt strange, knowing that what was happening was
wrong. He saw both of them lowering their guns, and his lower lip started to
tremble. That man had been nice to him. It had been a long time since anyone
had been nice to him.
Within seconds the two were taken outside, and hauled up inside a truck.
It was wrong… It was very wrong…
Chapter 14
Pacing the floor,
Starsky was angrily looking at the door, yelling at the dead piece of wood for
the tenth time that day.
“Will you please sit
down, they’re not going to hear you,” Hutch begged, also for the tenth time.
“What good does it do
them to kidnap us, and then leave us alone for hours on end? I’m hungry! HEY,
YOU HEAR THAT? I’M HUNGRY!”
“Starsk!”
With a dull thud
Starsky sat down on the cot next to his partner, finally relenting to the
situation. The room was a medium sized one. Square, with no windows. All it
contained was the small cot they both currently occupied, an old hole riddled
woven blanket covering the dirty mattress.
For the hundredth time
that day, Starsky berated himself for not turning back the moment he realized Donalds and Michaels were all the
backup they were going to get, for not having pulled the plug on the whole
operation when Hutch had shown him that note, for not listening to his
feelings, to his partner’s feelings. Dammit, in
hindsight, they’d both known something was wrong, but sometimes they were just too much a cop to let go. “Dirty
Feds, Hutch… they were playing us along.”
Lilly’s warning now
seemed frighteningly close, frighteningly real. Something’s going to get to him. He looked over at his partner, who
appeared far too calm considering the circumstances. Hutch was still in cop
mode.
“Starsky, you knew way
before me that something like this was going to happen, I think it’s time to
confess, buddy.”
Uh, oh, now he’s in interrogation mode. Throwing a hand in the air in resignation,
Starsky sighed. “I got a warning the other night at Huggy’s.
I met this women right after you left.”
His partner’s silence
didn’t make his confession any easier. Taking a deep breath he continued. “She
had this … premonition, I think. She told me something was going to get to
you.” He purposefully left out the ‘his future feels very lonely’ bit, the part
that worried him the most. The part that Starsky vowed would never come true.
Hutch stood up, and
walked over to the door. He turned. “That’s why you’ve been acting all weird
lately, huh?”
Starsky didn’t answer.
“You could‘ve told me, partner.”
“It wasn’t something Huggy hadn’t already told us, besides I know you. You don’t
believe in that mumbo jumbo. Remember that vampire guy? You were laughing at me
so loud; you almost choked on your garlic.”
“I also remember Collandra,” Hutch whispered.
The soft, serious
voice that was Hutch, not the cop, surprised the brunet. Collandra
had been a psychic who’d helped them locate a missing girl. They’d found her
exactly where he told him she was, making Lilly’s story all the more plausible.
Starsky looked up to find his partner looking at him silently. Without ever
having to think about it, he knew the blond was scared. “Hutch, its not gonna happen.”
Hutch looked away, avoiding eye contact. “They got to me the first time,
Starsk.”
With a sinking feeling
Starsky suddenly realized what his partner was talking about. “They’re not gonna fix you up.”
“What if they do?”
“Listen to me, Hutch! Hey!”
Unable to resist the
urgency in Starsky’s voice, Hutch irritably snapped his eyes onto his partner
again.
“Answer me this. When
you were kicking it, back in Huggy’s room, you
would’ve given anything for just a sniff of the stuff, right?”
A curt nod was all the brunet got out of him. “You’d even given up your
life for it, right?”
“What’s your point, Starsk?” Hutch snapped.
Not being deterred by
the anger in the blond’s voice, Starsky continued. “Would you’ve given up my life for it?”
No answer.
“Hutch!”
“What!”
“Would you’ve sold me out, huh? When you’d gotten the chance?”
“No… yes… I don’t know!”
He wanted to look away, but Starsky was determined to hold his gaze.
“You don’t know?”
“No! No, I wouldn’t have, Starsk! Not even for
that. I couldn’t. You know that!”
“Hutch, that’s crazy,
we’ve seen addicts selling out their husbands, their wives, children, friends.
All for the benefit of that one glorious moment the funny little white stuff
will give them! So why didn’t you, huh? What makes you so all mighty resistant?”
Hutch stared at him as
if he were the enemy. “I didn’t, Starsky! Isn’t that enough? I wanted to knock
your lights out, back in that room, dammit, and I
didn’t! Again, what’s your point?”
Starsky gave a soft smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
As Hutch was kicking
the dope, he had all but destroyed the room. He’d even gone for the door once
or twice. Starsky knew that realistically speaking, Hutch could have waltzed
right over him, could have floored him in order to easily cross that threshold
into a world from which the brunet would not have been able to get him out
again. But his partner had never resorted to such measures. Every time Starsky
jumped between him and that door, Hutch had turned back. “That’s exactly the
point Hutch, nothing can get to you, as long as this connection we’re seem to
be havin’ is there. It stopped you, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Silence descended for a few seconds.
“Lilly had a word for it; she said we were ‘soul bonded’.”
Hutch sighed. “I know
that.” The statement came as casual as the similar one Starsky had given
Delilah. “It doesn’t mean I can read minds, you should have told me about
Lilly, partner.”
The brunet smiled
again, sensing some of the tension seeping away from the blond. Strangely
enough it made him calm down some what too. “Yeah, well… You could‘ve told me
about that note, buddy. Guess that makes us even.”
“Some good that’s gonna do us. We better start
concentrating on finding a way out here.”
“Yeah,” Starsky knew Dobey was probably looking for them. But he doubted they’d
be found any time soon. The truck had taken quite some time to reach its
destination, and when it finally had, they’d been blindfolded. Apart from the
notion that they were in a basement, he didn’t have a clue as to where they
were.
For the thousandth time that day his mind focussed on just one thought.
He had to get Hutch out of here… Fast.
Chapter 15
The sound of enclosing
footsteps drew his attention. Hutch warned the brunet to stay quiet, before
turning away from the door as it was being unlocked.
As many as four men
stepped inside. Starsky stood up to stand next to his partner. “Well, if it ain’t the duck boys and their uncle Karl,” he mocked.
Hutch recognized Donalds, Michaels, Karl, and one of the Sumos
as they tactically positioned themselves around him and his partner.
“Can the smart mouth, Detective, or we’ll shut it up for you,” Michaels
threatened.
Hutch could tell
Starsky was about to retort in a nasty way, and managed to stop him with a
slight shake of his head.
Karl made his way over
to the blond, ignoring Starsky completely. The resemblance to
Stepping in close to
him, Karl looked the blond up and down. Hutch stood his ground, facing the man,
who now wore a smirk on his face. “Detective
“What do you want, Karl,” Starsky rudely interrupted him.
The man’s eyes never left the blond’s. “I’m looking at it.”
When Starsky’s fist
shot out, Michaels instantly raised his gun. Starsky’s wrist, however, got
caught in Hutch’s hand.
Their eyes met
briefly, the silent conversation that ensued only taking a split second as the
brunet turned his anger onto his partner. What
the hell are you doing?
Starsk,
don’t... They’ll take you out.
Hutch.
I need you with me… Please.
A nearly imperceptible nod followed, and Starsky backed off.
Karl frowned, turning
towards the brunet. “Detective Starsky, you’re a hard man to separate from your
partner, though we tried.”
As Starsky wisely kept
his silence, the older
“Want to tell us what’s going on, exactly?” Hutch could sound very cold
if he wanted to.
Karl’s smug answer
almost made him want to puke. “Did you like my little trail of bodies? The
trouble we had to go through to get you here.”
Starsky retorted
angrily, “Don’t give us that crap, Karl. We know you used them for your sick
little drug experiments.”
Donalds, standing behind Starsky, smiled. “The boy is clever, boss.”
Karl gave the brunet a
sly smile. “Well, we killed two birds with one stone, really. First off, I
needed this drug tested. And secondly, I knew our little experiments resulting
in the unfortunate deaths of the subjects, would lead you straight to me. If
you hadn’t come we would have… kept the trail fresh, off course.”
Karl pulled a vial
from his inside pocket. “This is the only sample of the finished version we
were able to make.” He held the small bottle up against the lonely light bulb.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? It contains just enough of the stuff to do what it’s
supposed to do, without killing.”
“Without killing?” Starsky asked incredulously.
Karl looked down,
focussing his attention entirely on the brunet this time. “Detective Starsky,
The killings were a necessary step in the development of this drug. However,
this final version is meant to be far more sophisticated, leaving you perfectly
alive.”
Hutch couldn’t help
but shiver slightly. He knew very well what the drug was capable of. Dobey had told him. However, before he could speak up, his
partner was already uttering a threat of his own. The anger in his voice
betrayed the fact that he had instantly understood the horrific implications of
the drug.
“Dead or alive, it
doesn’t matter, ‘cos we’re on to you, and you’re
little experiments. Vice will close down this entire operation of yours in no
time.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Karl smiled, sounding far too self
confident for Hutch’s liking.
“After we’ve tested a
drop of this stuff, Donalds and Michaels over here
will take the rest of it home with them. The Feds will take over. They have no
official knowledge of the … say, sacrifices which were necessary to create the
drug. They will order the cops to drop the investigation to protect their
investment and voila… I’m a free man.”
“T’riffic.”
Starsky murmured, obviously realizing their chances for survival had just
dropped dead.
“So,” Karl’s smile died on his lips. “That leaves us all set up, except
for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Starsky asked warily.
His eyes filling with hate, the older
Hutch knew what was to come. Inwardly he swallowed, hard.
“We just need one last test subject.”
Chapter 16
“Now, I know at least
one of you remembers this.” A cruel smile formed upon Karl’s lips as he pulled
out a small dope kit from his inside pocket. He opened it, clearly showing the
equipment necessary to string a person out.
“You dirty bastard.” Starsky said, his words containing a bitter anger.
He felt Hutch tense up.
The smile on Karl’s
face faded as he did not get the reaction from the blond he’d anticipated.
Nothing in Hutch’s demeanour showed any signs of noticeable shock. Just the icy stare.
But Starsky saw quite
a different feature when he had torn his angry stare away from Karl to look at
his partner. He saw a slightly paling face. And when he locked eyes, deep
within the ocean blues, a small pool of fear connected with him.
There was only one
thing stronger than the brunet’s instinct for survival, and that was his fierce
protectiveness over Hutch. Before Karl’s man could even have hoped to stop the
enraged man, Starsky had dived forwards, awarding
Hutch immediately went
for Michaels, but froze mid step when a
“Hold it or he buys it,” Michaels ordered the brunet, keeping his gun
trained on Hutch.
Starsky, having Karl’s arm locked around the back, let him go.
The man shrugged his
arm free and turned around. His eyes were blazing with a cold fire while his
cheekbone was beginning to colour a sickly yellow as he put his face inches
from the brunet’s.
The dark haired
Detective, whose hatred for the man would’ve made a lesser man crumble beneath his
stare didn’t move an inch. When he saw Hutch slowly raising his hands, backing
away from the gun, Starsky broke eye contact with Karl, not showing any signs
of defeat in the least.
“Hold him Donalds!” Karl shouted angry at the agent still standing
behind the brunet. Donalds viciously pulled his hands
behind his back.
“You’ll never get away
with this, Karl!” Starsky snapped. “Kidnapping two cops ain’t
exactly bright. But I guess it’s a family trait. Your brother wasn’t all too
bright either. He had to figure that out the hard way.”
Karl picked up the kit
from the floor. He straightened himself while looking at the big mouthed
Detective. A cold voice, devoid of any emotion returned the kindness. “Oh,
you’re so right. My brother was stupid. He only got one cop.” He turned to the
blond who was standing near the cot.
Hutch looked from the gun to the kit, and finally into Karl’s eyes.
Starsky felt dread replacing the anger in the pit of his stomach as
“I got two.” Karl stepped forwards.
Hutch took an involuntary step backwards.
Michaels stepped in, cutting off the blond’s escape route.
Starsky tried to pull
free. “You lousy excuse for a creep!” His anger was
fighting battles with his fear, the outcome being a couple of spitfire indigo
eyes, and an almost successful attempt to break free. However, Donalds at once tightened his hold over him, making his
arms feel as if they were encased in concrete. “I’ll hunt you down Karl, if
it’s the last thing I’ll do!”
He locked eyes with Hutch
who’d taken another step back, fear becoming apparent in each step he made.
Once again Starsky tried to wrench free, but to no avail, succeeding only in
nearly pulling his arms out of its sockets.
Karl nodded at the
Sumo standing a little off to the side. The large man stepped forwards to grab
Hutch, roughly pushing him down onto the cot. The gun, now trained on Starsky,
kept the blond from attempting any kind of a struggle.
With a bitter taste in
his mouth the brunet was forced to watch how his partner had to resign himself
to Karl’s wishes. Until the Sumo pulled out the blind fold… and Hutch went
ballistic.
“No!” he exclaimed,
voicing a deep guttural sound originating from deep within. Strong as an ox
when he wanted to be, the blond lashed out at the surprised Sumo.
Hutch’s fear wrecked Starsky to the core, but he couldn’t move. He
couldn’t do anything.
Michaels had lowered
the gun in order to help the Sumo restrain the now frantic Detective. After a
short struggle they managed to put on the blindfold. Finally they had him
silenced. Hutch’s muscles were trembling underneath the restraining iron fists,
his heavy breathing breaking the still air.
Starsky pressed his
lips together in anger. This was exactly how they’d managed to inject him the first
time. Hutch, reluctantly at first had finally told him about it. He was not
going to let it happen a second time. Not while he, Starsky, was alive and
breathing.
Karl had pulled out
the needle to fill it with the content of the vial. Michaels wrenched the
blond’s left arm free, pulling up the sleeves of the black and white shirt, and
the green shirt underneath. Karl professionally settled the needle just above
the vein.
All of sudden a cold voice shattered the air, “Don’t touch him.”
The words echoed off the bare brick walls, and back into the hollow
cell.
Karl stopped the needle from going in. A smug smile appeared on his
face. “Oh?”
“Give it to me.”
“Starsk.” Hutch’s head snapped up.
Ignoring the blond,
Karl turned around to face the brunet, while holding up the syringe. “This is
pretty new stuff. It’s never been tested before.
“Give,” Starsky stated cold, his voice devoid of all emotion.
“Starsky, what are you
doing?” Hutch hissed. Though he couldn’t see a thing, he faced straight into
his partner’s direction.
Karl’s smile grew
wider as he obviously enjoyed the blond’s distress at this new turn of events.
Waving his hand, he allowed Michaels to remove the blind fold.
Starsky’s eyes flashed
over to his partner’s teary ones. I’m
doing this for you, buddy. Don’t try to stop me.
Hutch opened his mouth
to say something but Starsky quickly looked away. His mind was set. He rolled
up his sleeve, putting out his arm.
“No, you can’t! Dammit, Starsky!”
Hutch’s hoarse voice
penetrated the Detective’s determination, but he managed to ignore it as he
spoke up, the bitterness dripping from his words, “Just don’t touch him.
Karl’s frozen laugh
and stone grey eyes were momentarily fixed on Starsky’s midnight blues. Then he
stepped in closer, grabbing the raised arm. Slowly he put the needle in. “You
know,” he said, whispering into the brunet’s ear, while pushing the drug slowly
into the vein. “This stuff will make you forget… everything, literally.”
“No,” Hutch shook his
head, his voice devoid of all energy as Michaels, Donalds
and the Sumo backed away, “Starsk.”
Karl pulled the needle
out. “Before the hour is up, you’re gonna wish it was
your partner we injected.” He smiled. He nodded at his men. Quietly, they all
left the room.
The door closed behind them. Silence fell.
Starsky stood very
still. Then he slowly started to shake from head to toe. “Hutch,” he whispered.
He felt Hutch’s arms supporting him, just a few seconds before the world went
black.
“You okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
Starsky answered gruffly as Hutch helped him to sit up on the cot. “How long
was I out?”
“Fifteen minutes… Starsk, what d’ you have to
do that for, huh?”
Swallowing a couple of
times, the brunet tried to get rid of the dizziness which had somehow
manifested itself as soon as he’d sat up straight. “I don’t know, it seemed to
be-”
“A good idea at the time, yeah, yeah,” Hutch finished, gently holding on
to his partner.
Starsky gave a deep
sigh. “It’s not too bad, as long as I don’t try anything fancy… Like move.” He
looked at his partner’s worried face. “I’m all right, for now, really.”
Hutch led his hand
slide from his partner’s shoulder as he stood up. “The man said an hour, Starsk.” He started to pace the floor of the basement in
frustration. “One hour… that’s how long I’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Hutch,” he recognized
the blond’s mood. Gone was the silent resignation. The fighter within had taken
control. It was a part of his partner which Starsky didn’t see often, which he
never enjoyed seeing. It was a reckless part which would stop at nothing to
save the brunet, even if it would cost the blond his life, and that was what
frightened Starsky the most.
He remembered the time
when he’d been poisoned by Vic Bellamy. When they’d chased him up to that roof,
Hutch had simply refused to fire. If Starsky hadn’t followed
them up there…
God, he hated to think
about what would have happened. Images of doom scenarios were still haunting
him at times. If there was anything worse than knowing he was going to be dead
in a few hours, or than the pain the poison was putting him through, it would
be to watch his friend die. The choice was his to make back then. Now, he
wasn’t so sure. “What do you know about this drug?”
His partner stopped his frantic pacing, only to slam his fist into the
wood of the door.
“Hutch.”
“It’s a drug
containing compounds used for brainwashing. Lab checked it out as being highly
destructive on the mind, especially the long term memory.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
The blond turned to
face his partner, for a moment looking quite vulnerable. “Starsky, it means
it’ll wipe your memory clean.”
Starsky stared at him before softly asking his next question. “To what level?”
Hutch took a few
seconds before levelling with his partner. “They couldn’t tell me, whether it’s
just the memories or… something more.”
“More?” The brunet’s voice sounded smaller by the second.
“Like Karl said, it’s never been tested.”
“Well,” Starsky managed to say. “At least I’ll still be alive.”
A silence fell between them.
Starsky’s own words
from an hour ago came back to mind. Nothing
can get to us, as long as this connection we seem to be having is there. Focussing
on those words, and putting his trust in them, he felt slightly better.
A noise coming from behind the door made both man turn towards it
simultaneously.
“Is someone there?”
Hutch called. The soft sound of moving feet made him try again. “Hello?”
“It’s me, remember me?”
“It’s that kid,” Starsky whispered urgently. “The one you gave the money
to for the flowers.”
“Yeah,” Hutch spoke
gently. “Yeah, I remember you. What’s your name?” He moved closer to the door.
“Tommy.”
“Tommy, you think you can help us get out of this room?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to you, but you can have this.”
Something small was
shoved underneath the wood of the door. Hutch picked it up, showing it to the
brunet: a pocket-knife. He was about to thank the boy when the lack of sound
indicated Tommy had already left.
“Now, how do you suppose he got here?” Hutch asked.
“You think Karl just took him?”
“They wouldn’t have let him run around free if he was their prisoner, Starsk.”
“No, I suppose not. I
guess Helen hasn’t been quite honest with us about her connections … to …
Karl,” Starsky stammered as a feeling of vertigo suddenly hit him.
Hutch frowned, before quietly walking over to sit down next to him.
“Hey, are you all right?”
The brunet was unable
to answer for a second as everything seemed fuzzy. He felt Hutch pulling him
in. Starsky let him. The warmth did him good driving out some of that stone
cold feeling which seemed to freeze his insides, the dizziness lifted. “Yeah,
‘m okay… ‘m okay.”
“Hang in there buddy,”
Hutch soothed, and then gently let him go to walk over to the door. “We’ll be
out of here in no time.”
After a couple of
minutes, Starsky started to feel slightly better. He was about to stand up when
his vision suddenly blurred. In reflex he grabbed his head with both hands as
vertigo was washing over him again in slow unrelenting waves.
God, this was bad.
The waves suddenly
subsided, leaving a tight feeling behind his ears and eyes. He carefully
removed his hands to look up and froze.
Where the hell was he?
The cold dark, damp room didn’t resemble anything familiar; and the man by the
door…”
A feeling suddenly stirred, strong, powerful, snapping angrily back in
place.
Starsky almost forgot
to breathe as he recognized his surroundings again. He looked up at Hutch,
thoroughly shaken as in that one horrible moment the drug’s full ugly potential
had shown itself.
It wasn’t just erasing
the memory… It was lashing onto his feelings, his emotions, and it went deep,
touching something which had angrily struck back, which he hadn’t even known
was there, his soul, his very being… and his connection to Hutch.
“Hutch,” he whispered.
Chapter 17
Hutch, who was busy
trying to unlock the door with the boy’s pocket knife, gave the brunet a quick
look. He ceased what he was doing when he saw the stricken look on his
partner’s face.
“I forgot…” Starsky
couldn’t help but feel utterly confused and suddenly something happened that
hadn’t happen to him in years. Panic set in. “I forgot … who you were,” he
continued with a slight tremble in his voice.
Hutch walked over to
him, determination obvious in every step. “I’m not going anywhere,” he spoke
softly, touching the brunet’s hand in comfort.
Looking up, Starsky
suddenly felt the reassuring feelings those words usually evoked slip. “No… oh
God… Hutch,” grunting he closed his eyes and opened them again, only to look
into a pair of blue eyes he had never seen before.
He jerked his hand back.
“Starsk… fight it. Come on.”
Feelings were racing,
colliding, coursing through his body as Starsky fought to keep his identity,
his life, his very soul from drowning. He fought… hard, until he began to
recognize the eyes again. Tears were streaming down his face, he started to
shake, uncontrollably and found his partner grabbing hold of both his hands.
“You’re with me?” Hutch asked hoarse.
Starsky nodded.
“Come on, I cracked the
door.” He pulled the brunet up from the cot, bent on getting him out of here.
They got as far as the
corridor when two men suddenly came into view. Hutch didn’t give them a chance.
Baffled, Starsky
looked at the two unconscious men, their weapons lying useless next to them on
the floor. “Remind me never to cross you when you’re angry,” He said, slightly
bemused.
Hutch returned the
attempted humor with a wry smile, throwing his
partner a gun, and taking one for his own, taking the extra clips he found in
the man’s pant pocket with him. “You still know how to use this, don’t you?” He
asked hesitantly.
“There are some things you never forget,” the brunet replied.
They both stood in
silence for a moment as Starsky was focussing on his partner, trying
desperately to hold on, and needing every ounce of willpower to do it. He grabbed Hutch’s arm. “Hurry,” he mumbled.
They ran through the
dark, dimly lit corridor until they reached some small stairs. Carefully taking
the concrete steps one at the time, they emerged into a wide open storage space
of what seemed to be an abandoned factory. A large rusty, iron shipping arm
loomed overhead. Old rotten crates were stacked to the side. Starsky squinted as he turned his head
towards the two wide open hangar doors, letting in the white glare of sharp,
clear daylight just a few dozen meters away from them.
Keeping to the sides,
they started to make their way towards it. They were only halfway, when a shot
echoed through the facility.
His police instinct
made the brunet dive behind a small pile of crates along with his partner.
Heaving, he noticed
Karl’s men were running over the iron walkway located all along the inner rim
of the storage area, two stories from the ground. The footsteps of their
assailants bouncing of the grid created a cold iron sound which seemed to be
coming from all around them. The men headed for the iron ladders to work their
way down to ground level.
Time seemed to run
out. Starsky acted on instinct and experience, pulling back towards the doors
as the FBI Agents and half a dozen Sumos started to
close them in. They were forced to return fire as bullets bounced of the
crates, indicating near misses at him and Hutch.
Hutch changed the
empty clip. Starsky saw the blond carrying a look of fierce determination in
his eyes as he fired again to keep the Sumos of their
backs. Then the feelings got confused. Why was this stranger defending him?
He closed his eyes
momentarily, then opened them, remembering, feeling, recognizing again. The brunet
shook his head, trying to clear it, trying not to loose his center.
He looked up. “Hutch,
get down!” Starsky pulled him to the ground just in time as one of the men
nearly got his partner square in the back. Deadly accurate, he shot the
assailant in the shoulder.
With a sinking feeling he realized the Sumos
were ignoring him, again.
Hutch started to sweat as the man came in from all around them.
They were close to the
exit now. The door was still clear. But the blond wasn’t a fool, he knew walking
out of here unharmed was going to be a problem, having noticed from the very
beginning that the fire was focused mainly on him. Karl obviously thought
Starsky wasn’t too much of a threat anymore as the drug must surely be kicking
in soon.
From his covered
position behind one of the crates, he shot bullet after bullet. Looking
sideways he saw his partner doing the same. “Starsky!” he yelled, more as a
statement than as a question.
Starsky shot him a
glance, strength had returned in his eyes for the moment. “What?” he asked
distracted.
“Get out!”
“What?” Bewildered the brunet stopped shooting.
“You heard me!” Hutch
yelled again. He had to get his partner out of here. He couldn’t let
“Are you crazy?”
Starsky yelled fiercely, moving over to grab Hutch’s shoulder, and angrily
jerking him around to face him. Hutch, who’d still been firing, suddenly found himself looking into his partner’s eyes. The blue fire
locked within them, seemed to flare up as Starsky spoke again, punctuating
every word. “They’re gonna kill you!”
Hutch looked at him for a moment. “Starsk…” he
whispered.
Then the hailstorm of
bullets intensified. With force, born out of desperate determination, Hutch
threw Starsky off of him towards the doors. Starsky stumbled backwards, taken
by surprise he nearly tripped over his own feet, almost crashing into a crate.
Hutch darted over to
another crate, away from his partner. “GET… OUT!” he yelled again, feeling a
familiar sting in his eyes. But he couldn’t give in to that, not now. From
somewhere he found the strength to fire again. The return fire on his position
was deafening, drowning everything out.
Starsky did not want
to leave his partner, who had moved a dozen feet away from him, drawing in all
the fire. Desperate now, he tried to get back to him “HUTCH, NO! I WON”T LET
YOU DO THIS! DAMMIT… HUTCH!”
Bullets intended to
keep the two men separated, forced him back. Starsky fired as he couldn’t help
but being forced towards the door. “HUTCH!” panic set in as he saw his partner
fighting a loosing battle.
He took a step
forwards, but suddenly his whole world turned upside down as the drug kicked
in. The sudden memory loss stalled him, halted him in his tracks. He groaned,
swallowing away the overwhelming nausea, desperately trying to hold on to his
partner’s voice, to the words he kept hearing, get out!
In the midst of his confusion, one of the men got a clear shot… and
fired.
Starsky saw his
partner go down. It jolted his feelings, his heart. “NO!” He fired, taking out
the man who’d shot his partner.
Hutch was down on his
knees, still firing. The image locked itself inside Starsky’s brain as he
started to forget. He couldn’t hold on. When he saw his partner being shot a
second time, his feelings reared up one more time, before locking themselves
away as the drug steadfastly went on with its destructive job.
It was like stepping
out of a picture, like turning off the television. Standing by the doors in a
firing position, Starsky stood stock still as he groped for fleeing images:
Images of laughter, of people, of
Starsk…
fight it, come on…
I’d never leave you and you know
it!
They got to me the first time, Starsk…
The image of a daisy…
The connection between
him and Hutch stirred, fought and lost. And he never felt its presence as
profoundly as he did then, right before it snapped.
He never would have guessed it would hurt so much…
He realized he was
crying, but he didn’t know why anymore. Slowly he backed away from the alien
scene in front of him, from everything that he was. Forgetting, loosing his
memories, his family, his partnership. For a moment images flared in his mind.
But they disappeared, until there was nothing left.
Chapter 18
Get out…
So that was what he
did, running. Running to get out of town, running to make sure this pain he
started to feel did not catch up with
him.
It worked. A strange
numbness settled over him. The brunet could feel its soothing power working its
way through him, tenderly smoothing the rough edges of the broken bond. He
didn’t realize that this was the drug’s only virtue, bringing peace where pain
should have been. He cradled the feeling, nurtured it, his mind gladly letting
go of the terrifying emptiness it faced.
The stupor caused by the drug enabled him to keep his body going, to
keep running.
It wasn’t until he
caught a lift from a friendly truck driver that he managed to catch his breath
a bit. Tired beyond words, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out
why, since he hadn’t done all that much today, the brunet closed his eyes in the
relative safety of the truck’s cabin.
God, where did this headache come from? Now if only he could get some shut eye in this
cramped space. Maybe then this hammering
going on inside my skull will cease.
With a sigh Starsky
drifted away into a deep sleep, one that would rid his mind of the last of the
confusion, leaving a blissfully, peaceful blackness in its wake.
However, unbeknownst
to him, the cruel breaking of their bond worked of course… both ways.
Hutch was screaming.
He had known pain before.
He had survived a car crash, lying pinned beneath it for hours on end, his leg
crushed underneath. He had survived the plague. He had taken a bullet or two in
his younger years, and he had even survived the pains of withdrawal.
But it was nothing like this.
He had dropped the
Magnum as he curled in on himself in shock. He didn’t even feel the wounds
caused by the bullets which had hit him, one in the left shoulder and one in
his left upper arm. The agonizing pain resonating from within the depth of his
soul radiated outward like a solar flare, the flaming, searing fire, ripping
him apart.
He didn’t understand
what was happening. He hadn’t even known a depth like that existed within him.
All he knew was that he felt ripped… torn apart from the inside. And he had no
idea how to quell the overwhelming agony of the ruptured bond which had existed
between them.
So all he could do was scream.
“SHUT HIM UP!” Karl
ordered, slightly panicked at seeing the blond rolling over the floor,
effectively awakening the whole neighbourhood. Thank God this factory was
located in a somewhat remote area with no one around for miles.
“How? We already shot him twice!” Michaels replied.
“Jesus,” Donalds whispered, staring in shock
at Hutch. “What did you do to him?”
“I shot him!” Michaels answered exasperatedly.
“Yes, but…”
“It’s not the gunshots, you idiots!” Karl walked forwards. “It’s
something else.”
Mercifully he knocked
Hutch out cold with the butt of his own gun, the following silence almost
hurting the ears.
“Interesting,” he mused. “It looks like the drug is having some side
effects.”
Donalds tore his eyes away from the blond and looked up. “But we gave it to the
other one!”
Karl didn’t laugh. “That’s what’s so interesting about it.”
One of the Sumos came running in from outside. “He’s gone,” he heaved.
“Boy, can that man run.”
“Let him,” Karl ordered, it’s obvious the drug did its job.
The Sumo frowned. “Won’t he run straight for the cops?”
This time, Karl did
smile. “He won’t remember a thing, not us, not his past, nor his life or his
partner over here.”
Donalds stared at him and all he could say was, “Jesus.”
“Right,” Karl motioned to the blond. “Pick him up. We got what we need. And Donalds?”
Donalds looked up from the still body on the floor. “Yes?”
“Make sure the Feds
keep their eyes on Starsky. I don’t care what he does as long as he remains
oblivious of his past. It’s highly unlikely, but if he starts remembering, let
me know at once, it’ll mean we’ll have to pack up and leave.”
The agent nodded. “Don’t worry, a deals a deal, we’ll take care of it.”
Starsky didn’t know
why he was going north. He only knew the truck driver was heading that way.
He’d woken up still feeling immeasurably tired. With drooping eyelids he stared
out of the large passenger window, watching the scenery slowly fade in the
dimming light of the setting sun.
Who knows where this truck is taking me. I
might even stay there for a while. Yes, that would be nice for a change. No more travelling… get a job at a local store or something… maybe even
meet a nice girl. Yeah, this truck will take me… home.
He closed his eyes
again, drifting away in a peaceful slumber, certain that when he would wake up
again, he would be home.
The bullets were
removed by some shady doctor; the injuries were treated and cleaned, but the
fever stayed, originating from deep within him.
“You know, Detective,
this connection you had with your partner is quite eerie and, I think you’ll
agree with me on this by now, most unhealthy.
Hutch heard him, saw
him, but didn’t acknowledge Karl’s presence. Lying on the old cot in the room
in the basement once more, he stared at the ceiling as feverish, hot drops of
sweat were trickling down his face. Pain kept coursing through his system.
There were no dreams,
just the frightening reality of not knowing what was wrong with him as he
suffered the experience of nausea, dizziness and the sense of free fall.
Emptiness was what he felt, feeding high temperatures, dehydration and
desperation as his soul kept searching for something that was no longer there.
Unable to cope with the loss his body was shutting down on him.
Hutch blinked a couple
of times as finally, after three confusing, terrifying days, he began to
understand what was going on. Karl’s words started to make sense.
“No,” he shook his
head in desperation. At least he’s gotten
away, the blond thought frantically, that’s
all that counts. “He… will…
remember,” he spoke hoarsely. “He can’t …” He gasped, trying to get the words
out of his dry mouth.
The determination
obviously angered Karl, who leaned in a bit closer. “He won’t. Not you, not
anything… it’s gone, destroyed. Can’t you feel that?” He fell silent for a
while, letting the words sink in.
“There’s nothing left for you now. No cops, no friends, no family, no
life….”
Hutch shook his head again in denial.
Karl squatted in front
of the cot, his face now mere inches from the blond’s. “You know, I didn’t like
it much at first, but now I think that giving the stuff to your partner was a stroke
of genius. Because watching you slowly die here is immensely more satisfying
this way.”
Hutch eyes flashed
with a surge of fierce resistance, before they widened in sudden pain. When his
cramped muscles unwind a bit, he whispered, “You’re a fool Karl. Why not just
kill me now, and get it over with?”
“Oh, this is just the
beginning, detective. That’s why I had your injuries treated. Your life is
mine.”
The blond turned his head away. “No.”
“Let go of your partner, he’s not coming back.”
“No.”
“Suit yourself,
detective. You just keep fighting. It makes your eventual destruction that much
sweeter. Too bad the Feds took the drugs with them when they left. Oh well, I
never liked Ben’s methods anyway. I much rather use my own means. It takes a
bit longer perhaps, but we’ll get there all the same. You’ll see, in the end,
you’ll want to die.”
Hutch closed his eyes
to shut out reality, trying to find the one feeling that would tell him if
there was any hope left.
There was nothing.
Chapter 19
“You know, Belinda? You’ve got the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“Flatterer.”
“Do you want to have diner with me? My treat.”
“But I own this restaurant!”
“So? Have you ever sat
down quietly in your own restaurant, enjoying a candlelight dinner for two?”
“I think someone’s fishing for information here.”
“Have ya?”
She smiled. “No.”
“You oughta.”
“Careful Mister Starsky. I could easily fall in love with you.”
“Call me David. Tonight? Seven?”
“All right, seven.”
Despite the fact that
Hutch was given food on a regular basis, and was even allowed to make guarded
trips to a filthy bathroom on the ground floor every morning, gradually the
blond’s fight lessened with his fading strength. Still, over the course of the
next two months the wounds started to heal, and much to Karl’s frustration the
fever, which had never completely left him, finally did brake.
“You’re still hanging
on to hope, aren’t you?” Karl angrily grabbed the blond’s wrist. His patience
obviously having run out, he clearly planned to get on with business.
Hutch tried to yank
his arm back, but the man had placed it in an iron grip. The blond just looked
at him in defiance, not giving a sound as with an evil grin, Karl purposefully
closed his hand even tighter around it, causing pain to shoot up the wounded
arm and shoulder. The blond bit back a cry, clenching his lips together in
stubbornness
Karl’s smile died on
his face. “I think it’s time we did something about that feisty nature of
yours, Hutchinson,” he spoke, angry, “Especially since you’re all well again.”
He motioned for the Sumos, who hauled him ruthlessly
off the cot. “Take him outside.”
They dragged him over
to the back of the factory where a large water-filled basin covered the
desolated area. Although Hutch tried to plant his feet, he was no match for the
two men throwing him in.
The Sumos jumped in after him to stand on the bottom of the
basin which turned out to be only chest deep. They ruthlessly pushed the
fighting detective under. He struggled, his splashing drenching the Sumos, the noise translating as a low underwater roar as
the dead lock around his arms and shoulders mercilessly stayed in place.
They pulled him up again.
“There’s no Starsky
here to save you!” Karl yelled, standing on the concrete edge of the basin.
“Stuff it!” He spluttered, after having taking in a few gulps of air,
his heart beating like crazy.
The Sumos coldly pushed him down again, and again, and again,
until they kept him there a little too long. In the brown murky water his
movements quieted down.
They hauled him up.
Hutch had started to
drift away into unconsciousness. He woke up with a start, panicking, forgetting
everything but the will to survive. In his despair he reached out frantically,
grabbing hold with both hands onto one of the Sumos
to keep them from drowning him again.
Karl smiled, motioning
for his men to halt their actions. “No more the tough cop everybody thinks you
are, huh? Who owns your life now,
Coughing up the stale
dirty water, Hutch didn’t dare answering. Water trickled down his face as the Sumos held him steady.
Karl’s posture was
victorious as he obviously realized he gained some footing. “Good, you’re
learning. That’s enough for now, boys.”
They dragged him back
to the cot. Soaking wet and shivering from head to toe, he was freezing in the
damp cellar’s chilling temperatures, the cold numbing the pain originating from
the barely healed gun shot wounds.
“Now, don’t you die on
me yet,” Karl mocked the trembling detective. “Tie him to the bed. Let’s see if
a couple of days of fasting will quench that stubborn streak of yours.”
The blond placidly let
the Sumos restrain him. “Y…You’re that af…f…fraid of me, Karl?” He whispered as his bonds were
tightened around the iron frame.
Karl, who was about to
walk out the door hesitated, his posture relaying to Hutch that he had hit
bull’s eye. The man turned around, his calm voice iced with unhidden
hatred. “My brother underestimated you,
and your partner. I won’t make that same mistake.” His tone grew nasty. “Maybe
in a few weeks, when you come to realize your whole life has dwindled down to a
pitiful existence in this basement, when you’ll accept I own your life, your existence, and your soul, maybe then… I will
untie you.”
Silence descended as Hutch
had trouble replying to the pure loathing he felt coming from the man. Normally
words such as these didn’t bother him that much. It came with a cop’s
territory. But recent events had done its job. Karl was beginning to get to
him. Hutch knew he was loosing. The near drowning having sucked away all his
strength… there just wasn’t much left anymore.
Karl understood.
Without saying another word, he proceeded to follow his man out into the dark
corridor.
A loud click and the lights went out.
Hutch clenched his
fists, wishing he could be sure Starsky wouldn’t just forget about him,
wouldn’t just abandon him. No matter what drug Karl had pumped into the brunet.
However, the unexpected, terrifying lost feeling, against which Hutch had no
defence whatsoever, kept winning terrain. The fear that his captor had
destroyed him at his core by literally taking Starsky out of the picture, kept
winning ground with every breath he took.
As he had done so many
times in the past few weeks he tried to squash the emptiness inside him as it
only served to hasten his downfall. And just as so many times before, he didn’t
succeed.
Hope began to fade,
slowly, relentlessly as it lost ground to the timeless void Hutch seemed to
find himself in. With a last gasp, he released his clenched fists, having
struggled in vain to free himself from his bonds. Tired, he relented to the
ropes which Karl had placed on both his wrists and his soul.
Shivering, all he could was drift away in the safety of the darkness.
Stepping into the bedroom,
a concerned look crossed Belinda’s deep brown eyes when she caught her fiancée
nearly choking on a nasty cough.
“I dink I cadched a cold or someding,” he mumbled.
Belinda tried to suppress a grin at the puppy eyed look he shot her.
“Men,” she said,
feeling truly sorry for him. “You, sneeze once, and you think you’re gonna die.”
“I feel horrible,” he whined.
“You better stay in
for today and rest up a bit.” She sat down on the bed, “We don’t want you to be
sick at your own wedding in a few months, now do we?”
“Wid a preddy girl
as you for a nurse, dis ding will pass in no dime.”
Belinda smiled, “try to get some sleep.”
Nodding in agreement, Starsky crawled back underneath the blankets.
She kissed him on the cheek, decided to fix him up some soup, and
silently left the room.
Chapter 20
Dobey was leaning with both arms on his desk, his
hands covering his face as he still heard the commissioner’s voice ringing in
his ears a few moments earlier over the telephone.
“The way I see it, you
don’t have a choice here, Captain. Either you drop the investigation, or you’ll
find yourself out of a job.”
“They were setup! Two of my best man can’t just vanish off the face of
the earth!”
“There’s a larger interest at stake here, the Feds are handling it.”
“The Feds were in on this,
A brief silence fell,
before the commissioner continued, “This order didn’t just come from the mayor,
Captain. It came from above, high above. And if you don’t want to find yourself
unemployed for the rest of your life, I suggest you follow it, and forget about
your men.”
Dobey could feel his face turning red with anger.
“Forget about them? Listen, you can order me to do anything related to my job,
but I will never… NEVER, forget about them, you hear me!”
“Harold…”
“And another thing, we
don’t even know if they’re dead or alive, what am I supposed to tell their
families, huh?”
Tell them that they’re
still missing, but that the Feds are taking over from now on, nothing more.
Whether you like it or not, this case is now classified, Captain. And the Feds will not tolerate interference
into ‘their’ investigation.
“Classified,
my ass! The government is
protecting the Forests for God knows what reason and Starsky and
Gardner’s voice at
least sounded lenient this time, “Look, we all know that sometimes certain
sacrifices have to be made, and as much as I would like to, there’s nothing I
can do about that, my hands are tied.”
“Well, unofficially,
I’ll still be looking Gardner, and if those Feds make one wrong move I’ll be
there to make sure everyone’s gonna know about it!
There’s nothing I can do about that, either!”
“It’s only because
you’re one of my closest friends that I can say I didn’t hear that, Harold. And
I’m sorry. I truly am.”
“Yeah,” Dobey said sadly, and hung up.
That was it then. He
had no choice. He couldn’t afford to loose this job. He had a wife and kids to
support. Angry, he stood up, throwing the chair backwards with force. He
stalked out of the office. The heavy silence descending in the squad room as he
entered it didn’t make things any easier. They all knew this day would come,
eventually.
Dobey had his men searching for over three months
now, non stop, but nothing had turned up.
Not even Huggy had been able to break the tight net the FBI seemed
to have firmly in place. And it wasn’t from lack of trying. The bartender had
completely turned the town upside down, looking under every stinking rock, playing
every card in his deck, cashing in on all outstanding favors,
even asking for some favors of his own every now and
then.
Nothing.
Dobey managed to spend more evenings at the Pits
lately. More than he used to. Since the case was classified all he’d been able
to tell outsiders was that the boys were missing. But Huggy
already knew differently, so they at least could talk to each other about their
anger and frustration. It somehow made the feeling of loss seem more bearable.
Quietly, Dobey now let his eyes pass over the small crowd. The
atmosphere inside the squad room had turned grim over the last couple of
months. There wasn’t as much laughter as there use to be. They were all good
men, most of whom loved their job. However, the disappearance of both Starsky
and Hutch sadly had a lasting effect… on all of them.
He waited until he got their full attention.
Then, not trusting his
voice he gravely shook his head, as if relaying the fact that one of them
hadn’t made it. “As of today…,” he spoke in a thick voice, “the case concerning
our two missing men has been deemed classified. From now on the Feds will take
over. Your orders are to cease all related investigation at once, be it
official, or unofficial, and to start concentrating on the new cases we got
coming in.”
Not waiting for his
people to burst out in objection, Dobey walked out of
the squad room, before either of them could see the tears forming in his eyes.
Hutch was tired.
He’d come to the point
of braking so many times, he lost count. As much as the blond was a fighter,
and not a quitter, Karl had been clever.
He’d managed to
viciously draw out every character trait the blond possessed, along with his
hopes, his strength, and his stubbornness, squashing them one by one by ways of
fasting, drowning and other physical means, making him slowly loose his self
respect and his dignity.
Each time he gave in
after one of Karl’s sessions, he hated himself more. He hated to see himself so
out of control, so dependent on the one man he knew should never see him like
that, to have to admit time and time again, that it was Karl who held his life
in his hands.
He was holding on, barely.
What made it worse was
that he couldn’t ‘feel’ his partner anymore. Hutch had always assumed he would
know whether Starsky was alive or not. He would feel it in his gut. But as
strange as it sounded, that was gone. His partner’s presence was simply
missing, as if he’d never met the man. The numbness replacing it was killing
him, the emptiness bled like a sore infested wound deep into his soul, tensing
up his stomach, affecting his breathing, undermining his strength, his ability
to fight, his resolve to endure this.
He couldn’t close his
eyes to escape it; he couldn’t find peace in his sleep, for the broken feeling
inside was always there, becoming even more tangible as he tried to shut it
out. Every time his mind tried casting a thought of hope, that thought simply
got lost in the dark where his friend used to be.
Karl knew, up to a
point, that he’d delivered the blond a near fatal blow by literally ripping the
two men apart. He used it, but not to its fullest extend. Hutch was well aware
of that. If Karl ever were to find out how to break through his barriers, how
to pull down the walls of faith concerning Starsky’s friendship, Hutch wouldn’t
be able to keep his balance. Not in the state he was in now.
Behind those walls was
a Hutch who simply craved to be loved, making him very vulnerable to those he’d
given his friendship too. So the trick to get to him was simple. Just throw his
care back into his face, use it against him, and the blond was devastated, like
Vanessa had done, or his parents for that matter. So he sure as hell made
certain he buried that side of his nature deeply within him.
But the tiredness had made him sloppy, and Karl’s bait had worked.
Hutch was glad to see
the boy, who hadn’t made his appearance ever since he’d given the blond his
pocket-knife. He should have known something was up when Tommy walked in, and
apparently was allowed to speak to him.
“Would you like to come out and play with me?”
From his position on
the cot Hutch turned his head to give him a weak smile. It was all he could
muster these days. Karl didn’t even lock the door anymore, there was no
strength left in him to walk out. “I can’t, Tommy.”
“You look sick.”
The boys worried features stroke a chord. “It’s okay, don’t worry, I’ll
get better.”
“Your friend just left
you here, didn’t he? Happened to me loads of times, I don’t have any real
friends.”
A sad look crossed
Hutch’s face as panic started to rise. If he’d been in any better shape he
would have been able to comfort the boy, to tell him it wasn’t true, that he
hadn’t been left behind. But as it stood now, the words from the kid cut right
through to his heart. He stifled the fear showing in his eyes, it was gone
before Tommy, or anyone else could pick up on it.
Or so he thought.
The soft smile didn’t
reach his eyes as he spoke softly. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be your friend if you
want me to be?”
“Yeah?”
Karl’s voice suddenly broke through their conversation. “Tommy, get back
upstairs.”
Looking up to find
Karl smiled, from
having observed their little get together he had obviously figured out how to
deliver the final blow.
Hutch lowered his
eyes, realizing the game was over. Without a word he let himself being pulled
roughly off the cot, and taken to one of the adjoining rooms where the Sumos tied him to a chair.
“You think someone’s
still out there who cares for you? You think that boy cares for you? You think
the good guys will win in the end? You think Starsky will come back for you?”
Questions were thrown at him. Questions which only demanded one answer. A
negative one, and when he didn’t gave it to them, the repercussions were hard.
“I bet you made fun of him lots of times. I
bet you often ridiculed him in front of your fellow cops, didn’t you? You seem
like that kind of man, a spoiled brat who has to tease his partner in order to
feel better about himself. Isn’t that what you’re
about? So, why would he come back for you? Answer me!”
“I’m not… like that. Starsky’s … he’s …”
“What about your
parents, Hutchinson, or your ex-wife for that matter? You look me in the eye,
and tell me that they loved the
conceited scum sitting in front of me now.”
Hutch realized with
horror that Karl had managed to access that part of him, which up till now only
Starsky had known about. His answers came ever haltingly, the repercussions for
giving the wrong ones, for showing any hint of pride, ruthlessly increasing. Until he muttered a stammering ‘sorry’.
And
When Karl’s words
continued to tug and rip his very being apart with every carefully stated
question, every physical blow to his system, every mental blow to his heart,
Hutch cried out in terror, screamed in denial and fear… and slowly lost his
footing. He slipped. The solid rock he’d been standing on tilted, slowly,
relentlessly… the process taking over an hour, until there was nothing left to
hang onto anymore, and he fell.
When they finally put him back in his cellar again, Hutch knew… it was
all over.
Belinda stared
dreamingly out of the window, watching her husband’s attempts to repair her
green Ford. He looked especially good leaning over the car’s engine under the
open hood. She always loved to see him in tight jeans like this. He had looked
rather well on their wedding too, dressed in black. The man had been positively
glowing.
Too bad none of his
family had been able to attend. When they’d had their first dinner over five
months ago, David had explained to her he’d lived in
The story had made her
heart fill with sympathy for the man. However, she also found it to be somewhat
unsettling. Apart from the sad content, David’s eyes had looked kind of glazy
all throughout his monologue, only clearing after they’d had their first bite
to eat. At first she contributed it to the fact that he simply hated to talk
about stressful events in his past. But now she wasn’t so sure. It was almost
as if he’d been making things up as he was speaking to her in a monotone voice.
In hindsight, it only added to the mystery his past seemed to be riddled with.
The wedding had been
nice. Her family, albeit small, consisting of her father and an aunt had been
there, as well as some folks from the local community. What troubled her was
that David had seemed real happy at first, until the evening came. For when
everyone had gone home her husband had carried that same glazy look again.
She’d asked him worriedly what was wrong, but he’d never really answered that
question. Instead he’d taken away her fears by giving her a night she would
never forget.
That was two weeks
ago. She sighed, recalling the events of last night. Something had woken her
up. And when she’d turned on the small table lamp near her bed she noticed with
shock that her still sleeping husband next to her was crying.
“A bad dream,
She wondered if that
was all it had been, if this wasn’t some traumatic event from his past still
haunting him. However, he’d assured her that wasn’t the case, and he’d never
lied to her, or anyone for that matter, he just wasn’t that kind of man. So
what else could she do but to trust in the fact that he was telling the truth?
Beneath her window,
her husband angrily closed the hood of the Ford with a loud bang. Looking up,
he gave her a thumbs-down sign, a sad expression on his face telling the whole
story. The car was a goner.
She smiled down at him.
He just shrugged, giving her a big grin in return.
Whatever had upset him
so much in the middle of the night seemed to have gone now. Maybe someday she
would find out more about his past, maybe not. It didn’t matter. All that mattered
was the future. They were a couple now, friends, and partners. No matter what
the coming year held in store for them, they would face it… together.
Chapter 21
The phone sitting in
the small office overlooking the factory’s large storage facility was ringing
off the hook for over ten seconds before Karl annoyingly picked it up. “Yeah,
talk to me.”
The voice on the other side of the line sounded a bit high pitched,
“Karl is that you?”
“Yeah, Donalds, what do you want?” he snapped,
recognizing the voice.
“Easy man, I’m just informing you of the current situation.”
“What situation, you have everything under control haven’t you?”
“We’ve been receiving reports that Starsky’s still having flashbacks
every now and then.”
“You assured me that this couldn’t happen! You said the drug was
foolproof!”
“It is! Don’t worry.
These flashes will fade with time, believe me Karl. The man got married and
everything. God, you wouldn’t believe the paperwork we had to arrange for
that.”
“Donalds!”
“All right, all right,
look, even if he does remember eventually, which I highly doubt, it’ll take
months for him to sort it all out, so it might be a while before the man
returns to
“Well, can’t you stop him if he does?”
“We’re not murderers, Karl.”
“Not murderers! What about the test subjects?”
“What test subjects?”
Karl cursed under his
breath. Of course he’d always known that when push came to shove the FBI would
simply deny ever having had any contact with him. “Fine, let’s just hope he
won’t remember then.”
“He won’t, trust me.
In fact, we don’t even consider him to be a threat anymore, so, as of now,
Starsky’s no longer under our surveillance. We instructed the local police to
leave him alone as much as possible, but that’s it. And just so you know, this
is to be our last communication. You’re a valuable source, Karl. We might be in
need of your services again in the future.”
Good, at least that means they won’t kill me to
cover up their tracks. “Yeah,”
he mocked, “I’ll miss you too.” He hung up the phone, and thought things
through. The drug was strong, Donalds was right. Even
if Starsky would remember eventually, maybe in another year or so, it was of no
consequence to him. He would be long gone by then.
It felt good to be fully in charge again.
He could hardly
believe it had been six months since he’d met Belinda. Starsky was devouring a
homemade pizza, while at the same time admiring his wife from a distance. As
she moved around behind the bar with grace, he recalled how beautiful she’d
looked at her wedding a month ago.
His thoughts darkened
as he pondered over this morning’s events. To his relief, after his little
escape at Hank’s store, the dreams had left for a while. He’d even started to
believe they’d been nothing more but images brought on by stress, caused by
some sort of post-wedding anxiety. He
was sure the strange hallucinations he’d had last week, merely served to drain
some of his tension and now, life had returned back to normal.
Life was good.
Until this morning.
When he’d nearly crashed his truck into the nearby bus stop.
He’d been twiddling with the radio when his stomach had suddenly done a
flip turn.
Just for a moment he found himself in another
car, racing across a long and winding empty grey street. The seat next to him
was empty. Tears were streaming down his face, though he didn’t know why. He
was angry, so angry… at himself, for being too late, far too late.
With a start he’d
found himself back in his own pickup again, heading on a collision course with the
local transporting company’s property as he’d unconsciously sped up. He managed
to miss the unmovable object by mere inches, bringing the truck to a skidding
halt. He was glad Belinda wasn’t with him, for the curses that followed would
have made her blush a deep red.
The chimes of the door
bell indicated someone was entering the restaurant. Shaken from his thoughts,
Starsky looked up to see his wife standing frozen behind the bar.
“DON’T
NOBODY MOVE!” The man wearing a long black coat and a ski mask anxiously
pointed his gun at Belinda. Restless grey eyes quickly took in the
surroundings, before he purposefully stepped over to the cash register.
The robber had failed
to notice the brunet, who was sizing the man up from the safe position of the
kitchen. Starsky hated guns, he always had. He had no idea why… he just hated
them. Belinda owned one. She kept it in the kitchen in a pan she hardly ever
used.
A nervous masculine
voice interrupted his thoughts. “Just put the money in this bag, baby, and nothing
will happen to that pretty little face of yours.”
His wife was too shocked to move.
“MOVE IT, LADY!” The
guy shouted, walking behind the bar, roughly shoving Starsky’s wife to the cash
register.
Starsky quickly moved
out of sight as something inside took over. Without making a sound he opened
one of the cupboards and lifted the lid of the pan, taking out the gun. Then he carefully proceeded to take the clip
out of the drawer, locking it in place.
His own voice suddenly
rang in his head, like an echo from the past. There are some things, you never forget. He walked over to the
kitchen door. His movements graceful, his actions programmed, robot-like.
The man’s attention
was still on the money which Belinda was putting in the bag as quick as she could.
With a certain amount of pride Starsky noticed her hands weren’t even shaking.
“FREEZE!” he ordered.
The startled robber turned, aiming his gun at the brunet.
Before Starsky
consciously registered what he was doing, he made a dive roll. When he came up,
the man shot to kill, missing the brunet by mere inches.
Starsky fired.
His wife screamed.
The impact of the
bullet threw the man backwards. Bottles, glasses, and the mirror behind the bar
broke into a thousand pieces as the man fell into them. The overwhelming sound
of breaking glass shattered a barrier inside the brunet he hadn’t even known
was there, a barrier which had kept yet another memory from surfacing. He sat
frozen in place, one knee on the floor, gun with both hands still trained at
the man.
In another time and
place blue eyes met his…split seconds before the shot rang through the street,
throwing the blond man full force through the glass door behind him. The noise
of shattering glass… the feeling of utter despair when he saw him fall through
that window… He saw it… clear as day… again, and again, and again. His mouth opened to call a name. But no sound
would emerge. There was only emptiness.
Warm hands touched his trembling fists still locked around the gun.
“Dave.”
Slowly he registered Belinda’s voice and looked up.
“It’s over, lower the gun.”
“How…” he stared at
her, his voice soft from shock. “How could I forget something like that?
Jesus…”
“Dave, come on.” Belinda put her hands on his gun, slowly taking it from
his grip.
Starsky stared from the gun to her kind face.
“How did you know how to do all that?” She asked bewildered.
“I don’t … know… I
just knew… I… we…were in a city, recently.” He said confused, standing up.
“We?” Belinda’s voice sounded slightly suspicious.
“Yeah, the blond…”
Starsky explained, leaning over the bar to check on the robber, who was knocked
out cold, thereby missing the flash of jealousy shooting across his wife’s
face.
“Blonde? A girl?”
With the memory of the
man crashing through the window, still vividly burning his inner eye he
answered without hesitation. “No, a guy.”
She put a hand on his
arm. “A guy? David, listen to yourself.
You told me that after you left
“No,” Starsky said,
shaking his head, confused. He remembered the man. He remembered the image, and
if he concentrated enough he could even remember him laughing, them talking
together. But he couldn’t remember a name, a place, what city they were in.
That made it awfully unreal, for Belinda was right. He had not been to a big
city since he’d left
His wife stared at him
in awe before calmly stating the obvious. “Listen, you’re just upset. God knows
I am. It’s normal to create a bit of a fantasy in order to cope with… with what
you just did.”
“That doesn’t explain
me handling the gun like I just did, not to mention that… that dive roll. I’m
telling you
“Dave, a person can do
extraordinary things under extraordinary circumstances. You probably just
watched ‘The Rookies’ just one time too many.”
He turned away from
her. His wife’s logic made perfect sense. And if it wasn’t for that little
voice that kept telling the blond was not a fantasy, and was as real as the
creep lying behind the bar, he might have let it go. But now, somehow, he couldn’t.
What city indeed? He thought frantically, gripping the bar with
both hands. Come on, Dave. What city?
His head snapped up. “
“Go? Go where?”
“
“
“You can go with me or not. Either way, I’m going.”
Chapter 22
The police took both
Starsky’s and Belinda’s statements, but strangely enough left it at that. To
Starsky’s surprise they had no problem with the fact that he and Belinda would
leave for their ‘honeymoon’ the next day.
Luckily, the robber’s gunshot wound wasn’t life threatening. However,
the man would be out of commission for a while.
So, after a restless
night, they left to start their trip down south early in the morning, leaving
the restaurant in the capable hands of the cook. The small town of
His wife sat quietly
in the passenger’s seat as she obviously tried to come to terms with his
strange behavior. The look in her eyes, right before
she agreed to come was one he would never forget. She hadn’t said it, but
Starsky knew she was wondering if he’d actually gone crazy.
It wasn’t a comforting thought.
To top it all off, the
further they got away from home, the more cramped the brunet’s insides started
to feel, the pain in his stomach increasing steadily over the last one hundred
miles, resulting in slight tremors shooting up his spine. He felt awful. The aspirins
he’d taken two hours ago didn’t seem to help, and seeing as he still had a long
drive ahead of him, he didn’t dare take anything stronger.
Trying to keep his
condition from Belinda, Starsky had withdrawn inwardly, keeping quiet as he
tried to keep the pickup on the road with the sweat filled palm of one hand.
Silently he tried to keep the truck steady, ignoring the feverish spells by
gripping the wheel tightly.
His hand clenched when
suddenly his brain decided to launch vicious little knifes at his eyeballs.
Nausea, headache and dizziness overwhelmed him, seemingly coming from out of
nowhere. He panicked slightly, not understanding what was wrong with him. The
intangible feelings sent his anxiety through the roof. What the hell am I doing taking off to the South just like that? For
a moment he feared Belinda was right. That he’d gone crazy. God, look at me. Here I am, chasing ghostly
images from my dreams, which could turn out to be nothing more but figments of
my imagination.
Without a word he took
a ramp off Interstate Five leading to a motel. Surprised, Belinda turned to
face him. He couldn’t look her in the eyes. Instead, he stopped at a parking
lot where he angrily yanked the door open and exited the truck.
Belinda stared at him.
The brunet saw the tears welling up in her eyes for fear he’d lost it as he was
pacing the slab of concrete, trying to catch his breath, using the fresh air to
get rid of the nausea and confusion.
If anything it only
made matters worse. Not wanting to upset his wife anymore than he’d done
already, he made a beeline for the small restaurant, heading straight for the
restroom where he immediately lost his entire breakfast.
Fear raced through him
as he stood there leaning over the toilet, trembling from head to toe. He
coughed, carefully stood up straight, and pushed the lever. Then he went over
to the washbasin to wash up. The man in the mirror staring back at him looked
ragged. If he didn’t know any better he’d say he was going through withdrawal.
What the hell’s wrong with me?
The worried voice of his wife sounded from behind the closed door,
“David, are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just give me a few minutes, I’ll be right there.”
“I’ve booked us a room
at the motel. It looks like you’re not going anywhere for a while. We’ll be
staying the night, okay?”
“Yeah, ‘s okay. Thanks
Right now he wanted
nothing more but to turn around and head home, where it was safe. The thought
of having to enter the car to continue his journey almost made him run for the
John again. Something inside him objected fiercely to that idea. He hated to
admit it, but
He closed his eyes,
trying to get rid of the headache. The pain had a familiarity to it. With
effort he remembered he’d been running at the time. Someone had shouted at him
to get out…
Had that really happened? No, it couldn’t be real.
The detective within
him stirred, urging him to seek some answers, causing him to shake his head in
frustration. Angrily he pulled himself together.
Damn, I have to find out what this all means. I
can’t turn around now. It’s just to
And if
it turns out to be a wild goose chase?
Well, you can’t blame a man for
trying.
Determined now, he headed out to find his wife.
Karl stared down at
his pray lying forlornly on the dirt-covered ground in the corner of the
cellar. Tying him to the bed hadn’t been necessary since that memorable day
when the detective had stopped fighting, a few months ago. Ever since then, he
had seen the fire slowly extinguish from the blond’s eyes.
With satisfaction he now watched his handy work.
Vacant eyes.
Karl had seen this expression for far too many times to not recognize it
instantly.
Usually it didn’t take
six months, though, more like six weeks, maximum. This project had been highly
interesting. A most educating experience, teaching him once again, that all men
had their breaking points. His fear for the detective vanished as he realized
this had just taken a bit longer, that was all.
He sighed, drawing the
blond’s Magnum from under his jacket. He’d been carrying it ever since he’d
first captured the two. Calmly, he took off the safety.
The detective didn’t
even flinch. Once they reached this state, they never did. He aimed for the
head. Too bad it was all over. However, it was best to put the blond out of his
misery now.
“NO!”
A small body raced
into his firing range. Karl immediately lifted the gun, but realized he’d
already pulled the trigger as the sound echoed loudly through the basement. In
shock he saw the result lying lifeless on the ground in front of him.
“Oh, no, no, no,” he said, the implications of what he’d just done
scaring him to bits. “He’s never gonna forgive me. Ben’s
never going to forgive me! SHIT!”
Hutch woke up slowly,
dimly recalling Karl’s intention to shoot him. He hadn’t mind. The memory of
his partner, his life outside as a cop had vanished a long time ago. All that
was left of his existence belonged to the man leaning over him, and he’d
watched with vague disinterest as the muzzle of his own gun was pointed at his
head.
Surprised to find that
he was still alive he clenched his eyes shut, feeling a rush of fear of what
had almost happened. A part of him suddenly recalled the day everything
changed. The day he’d stopped fighting and had let Karl take over. He sobbed
slightly. He fought it for such a long, long time, but in the end just had to
give in. And now he didn’t even know who he was anymore.
Opening his eyes and
blinking a couple of times, Hutch started to register his surroundings. To his
surprise he wasn’t in the cellar anymore. He was lying on the floor of a room,
which seemed… familiar, somehow.
Then he noticed the body.
With a gasp he crawled
over to it, shook it. The boy didn’t move. Panicking, Hutch looked at his
hands, they were covered in blood. His eyes grew wide as he also noticed the
gun lying only inches from where he’d woken up.
Trembling all over,
Hutch stood up, stepping back from a scene he didn’t understand. Suddenly a
door opened behind him. He turned to find Karl staring in shock at the dead
kid.
“What did you do?” Karl looked at him, utterly horrified.
“I … I didn’t-”
“You killed him!”
“No! I… I didn’t-.”
“How can you deny it,
detective?” The last word was spoken with utter contempt, “I gave you back your
gun, and you went and killed the boy!”
“N... No… I could never-” Hutch lowered his head.
“Don’t tell me you
could never do it,
Hutch obediently followed his gaze, “Y... Yes, but-”
“You want me to
believe that you let the boy ‘play’ with your gun and he accidentally killed
himself?”
Hutch fell silent,
confused. Something inside told him, firmly, unrelenting, almost angry that he
wasn’t capable of something like this, he wasn’t. And that if he was, he didn’t
deserve to live.
“I’m calling the
cops,” Karl suddenly decided, walking over to the phone located on a dresser
next to a vase containing a bouquet of long dead flowers.
“You should be in jail, where they’ll take care nicely of people like
you.”
“N… No…please… I didn’t-”
“You don’t deserve to live.” The man said in a low voice.
Hutch froze.
Karl stared at him,
and Hutch felt as if he was nothing more than a dog, which needed to learn its
place. “Okay, I’m giving you one more chance, detective. Either you pick up
that gun, and end your miserable life, or you walk out now, and run from
justice forever. Take your pick. It’s your choice.”
The blond shook his
head, reeling from the fact that Karl had given him a choice. It’d been a long
time since he had one. He stepped back, slowly, as a survival instinct Hutch
didn’t know he still possessed kicked in. The choice was easy.
He turned… and ran.
Karl watched him leave
Helen’s apartment. His grey, unemotional grey eyes were cold with revenge.
Taking a handkerchief out of his pant pocket he used it to pick up the handle
from its cradle.
It took him a full
five minutes to alert both the newspapers and television stations. He smiled as
he hung up the phone. By the time the police would figure out what was going
on, it was already too late.
For a few moments after
he’d gotten Tommy killed, Karl had thought he was a dead man. His brother would
never forgive him for killing his son, even if it was just a runt born from one
of Ben’s many flings.
But this way, not only
would
As usual he would walk away free. Just the way he liked it.
He waited just a few
moments more to give the detective a head start, and then picked up the phone
again. It was time to call Helen.
Chapter 23
Being locked up in
that basement for six months had made Hutch sensitive to every outside stimulus
his senses were bombarded with right now. The streets looked long and hostile;
the open space was almost too overwhelming, the sky above felt frighteningly
dangerous, and the noise coming from the ongoing traffic sounded horrendously
loud.
People were watching
him as they stopped doing whatever it was they were doing when he staggered
passed them. He tried to ignore their accusing stares, but it was hard. Their
eyes seemed to follow him everywhere.
He didn’t know where
he was going. A part of his mind recognized the environment, the street he was
in, but these memories weren’t able to break through the walls of fear and
panic Karl had bestowed on him.
His legs ached as the
weak muscles protested against their sudden use, so the blond was forced to
pause for a while inside a small dead end alley.
Trembling all over, he
leaned against the fire escape of a black-bricked building. His broken will had
trouble catching up with reality, and wanted nothing more than to pull back
into the safety of the darkness again, to let someone else, to let Karl do the
thinking.
Hutch sagged onto the
iron steps, giving in to his body’s demands to rest, if only for a few minutes.
He woke up with a
start, having no idea how much time had passed. However, in reality it hadn’t
been more than a couple of hours. He nearly cried in pain as the unusual
sitting position wrecked havoc with his already sore muscles. The blond stood
up slowly as his mind told him to push on. Grunting, he forced his legs to
move.
The pain in his
muscles subsided and Hutch found he was able to think more clearly. He couldn’t
go home, if people found out what he’d become… No, he couldn’t look them in the
eye. They would despise him, just as Karl had predicted they would.
And Starsk…
A pain which concurred
him long ago reared up sharply, instantly making the small flame that was
Kenneth Hutchinson withdraw even more into the dark pit Forest had thrown him
into when he’d fallen over the edge. He felt lost, so incredibly lost, and the
vague sensation of knowing where he was, only served to make him feel even more
disconnected.
And frightened as hell.
If only I could explain to
someone that I didn’t do it.
With effort he
stumbled back onto the main street again, managing to keep himself more erect
this time, not drawing too much attention to himself. Unconsciously he headed
towards
Hutch neared a
crossing and turned at the sudden sound of wheels skidding to a halt. A large
black Chevrolet had just pulled over. Three tall, red haired, broad shouldered
men with grim expression on their faces exited the car, followed by a copper
coloured haired woman.
He froze, recognizing Helen instantly.
She marched over, her
eyes red rimmed with grief, her features contorted with rage. The look on her
face, the one of a grieving mother, shook him to the core. She stopped,
confronting him with an icy stare. Her eyes holding nothing but utter contempt
as they both stood there, frozen in time while the world rushed on around them.
There were so many
things he wanted to say. First and foremost that he didn’t do it. Somehow the
words wouldn’t come. His tired mind could only look at her in shock over what
she must feel right now. “Helen, I didn’t…”
His words died on his
lips as she looked at the blood that was still on Hutch’s hands. Her head
snapped up. She shook it in a bitter negative, biting her lower lip with tear
filled eyes, and obviously rejecting the vermin, which stood in front of her.
Her deep inner turmoil as clear to him as if she’d shouted it from the
rooftops,
Condemning him with a simple nod, she stepped aside to let the three men
take over.
“In case you’re
wondering, we’re her brothers,” the left man growled. “And suffice it to say
that when you killed Tommy, you signed your death warrant.”
Only now did Hutch
realize that he’d seen them hanging around Karl before. The one in the middle,
was holding a baseball bat and swung it threateningly in his direction, while
the brother on the right continued his speech, “You see, in our family we don’t
wait for the cops to do the dirty work, we do it ourselves.”
“It wasn’t me…” he spoke hoarse, holding up
his hands in surrender. “I never… I couldn’t…”
“And who else might
have done it then?” Standing slightly off to his side, Helen’s bitter words
rang through the street. “Karl? You really think he’d kill his own nephew?”
“N…Nephew?”
“Yes,” one of the
brothers hissed low. “Nephew, Ben’s son, and you killed the boy to get back at
him, didn’t you, cop?”
The men closed in,
their intentions clear, they were done talking. Although outnumbered and far
from being able physically, or mentally to take on his adversaries, a part of
Hutch reacted on instinct alone. He drew the Magnum. They stopped their
approach, barely four feet away from him.
The front man carrying
the wood spoke dangerously, “What’s the matter, one little boy wasn’t enough?
You’re gonna kill us too?” his eyes filled with
aggression. Sizing Hutch up, he lowered his voice a few octaves, “You’re dead.”
Hutch tried to keep
calm, but it was hard to do that with Karl’s voice sounding in his ears,
telling him that that this was what he had coming. Doubt began to work its way
inside, gnawing at his conviction that he hadn’t done it. After all, he had the
blood on his hands, and the gun... the gun which had killed Tommy… was his. He
now held it in a shaking grip with both hands, wanting nothing more than to
drop the thing altogether.
The front man, the one with the bat sensed his indecision.
Hutch backed off in
anticipation, but was too late. He yelled in sudden pain as the wood connected
hard with his right wrist, knocking the Magnum out of his hands. The bat swung
again. Frantically, the blond ducked out of the way. The middle brother cursed,
as Hutch’s manoeuvre accidentally made him hit his left brother in his stomach.
The blond didn’t wait for them to recover, and headed for the door
behind him.
“Get him!” The now hunched over left man whispered between pain-filled
breaths.
Clutching his sore
wrist the blond burst inside the diner, only to stop short just inside the door
at the nightmarish scene that greeted him there.
The crowd of people
who’re just making a quick stop to grab a bite to eat after work, all fell
silent. The television set in the corner was the only thing that went blatantly
on broadcasting the local news to whoever wanted to hear it.
“We repeat: a body of a young boy was found
this morning in an apartment on
The scene changed to one showing a sobbing Helen. “He killed my boy! He shot him in cold blood!”
Tears overwhelmed her. Between choking breaths she managed to speak a few more
bitter words. “He
escaped, but rest assured justice will be done. If anyone sees him, call this
number.” She mentioned a telephone number, and then got cut
off by the female reporter.
“At this point the police are unwilling to give a statement regarding
the possible suspect.”
The scene changed again to that of a picture.
Countless heads turned
from the television set, where Hutch’s picture was now being displayed in clear
black and white, back to him.
Seconds passed without anyone daring to speak up.
Oh God. What was left of his former self instantly realized that any hope of
getting someone to listen to him, had just been thrown out the window. No one
would believe him. He was already convicted, already found guilty by the
majority of people. The hunt had already started. And he was nothing more than
the prey Karl had made him out to be.
Over at one corner a
group of local construction workers noisily stood up in an aggressive gesture.
Behind Hutch the brothers had entered.
“Yeah, that’s right,”
one of the three shouted at the crowd. “That’s him, and I’ll say we give him
what he deserves.”
Hutch turned to slowly
back away from them. The brother’s gazes
were fixed on the blond as they aggressively moved in for the kill. With a loud
crack the bat impacted on a table surface inches away from him, smashing the
table in half, making Hutch flinch.
“Come on, Folks.” One
of them continued, “Are we going to allow scum like this to run loose on our
streets?”
More people stood up
in active aggression, acting like a shoal of fish as they single-mindedly
started to react violently to the angry atmosphere permeating the diner.
Someone spit on him.
That spurred his
terrified mind into action. Pushing aside a surprised black suited office
employee with a hard shove, Hutch fled for the back door. However, a
construction worker tripped him, making him crash land into another
construction worker who punched him hard in the stomach.
Despair born out of
pure survival, made him let his cop instincts take over. He picked up a chair
to swing it with force into the back of the guy’s head. Without a sound, the
man sank to the ground. Hutch avoided another swing, and violently shrugged
himself loose from groping hands to finally reach the relative safety of the
backdoor.
He ran out.
His mind went blank
when he looked over his shoulder to find the crowd surging out behind him,
ruthlessly hunting him down. He could hear their cries of hate and anger
growing ever louder, could feel his own terrifying fear pushing his tired
muscles beyond their limits.
When he neared the
intersection again, he was beyond being able to think straight, and took the
first opportunity for escape. He dove inside the back of a passing red pick up
truck, which just accelerated from having to stop at the traffic lights.
Lying on his back with
his heart throbbing in his throat, and unable to move, the aggressive sounds
slowly dispersed. He closed his eyes in fear, losing himself in the absolute
horrifying experience.
Karl had been right. He would be running from justice… forever.
Chapter 24
The city reflected
nothing familiar. The busy streets only served to make him ill at ease. Starsky
had hoped that once he’d laid eyes on the concrete surroundings, the smells and
sounds would ring a bell.
They didn’t.
As he sat in the
passenger’s seat, staring outside at the dark streets, the brunet’s mood
dropped significantly. Wild goose chase,
you see, Dave? I told you so.
Night had fallen and
his wife drove them to a hotel that was recommended to them by the Motel owner
they’d met the previous night. The man was even kind to give the place a call,
and let them know they were coming.
Starsky sighed.
“Nothing?” Belinda asked carefully.
“Nothing, not one damn clue. It all looks the same to me, big grey cold
buildings.”
“Give it some time. Everything will look different in the morning.”
“Sorry,” Starsky said, gently taking her free hand and turning towards
her.
“For what?”
He motioned outside with his other hand. “For all of this, for the way
I’ve been acting.”
“Well,
He kissed her hand, and then spoke softly. “I’ll make it up to you, I
promise.”
Her smile widened.
Normally that would
fill his heart with pure pleasure, but now he wondered why it still felt so
empty.
The next day had them waking
up fairly late in the morning. Starsky hadn’t realized how tired he’d been
until his head had hit the pillow last night and he’d promptly fallen asleep.
Walking out of the shower with a white hotel towel tugged around his waist, the
brunet found his wife sitting on the bed, watching the small black and white
screen with interest.
Starsky turned to face
the television set standing on the dresser, curious to see what caught her
attention.
A distraught woman was
yelling hysterically at the camera’, “He killed my boy! He shot him in cold
blood!”
Jeez, welcome to the big city, Starsky thought.
The women continued, “He escaped, but rest assured justice will be
done. If anyone sees him, call this number.”
The news lady cut her off. “At this point the
police are unwilling to give a statement regarding the possible suspect.” The
scene faded into one that showed a picture.
Starsky felt his stomach sink a view feet. It was
the oddest sensation. Blood was rushing to his head, and for a moment the whole
world started to tilt as he recognized the man from his dreams. His mouth
dropped to the floor. “That’s him!”
“What?” Distracted, Belinda
shot him a sideway glance.
“That-” He fell silent as
the news flash started to repeat itself.
“We repeat: a body of a young boy was found
this morning in an apartment on
“That’s him!”
Belinda frowned, turning towards her husband. “Him
who?”
“Him! The person I’ve been dreaming about, the one
with the blue eyes… Well, you can’t tell he has blue eyes now, cos the t.v.’s black and white,
but-”
“David,” his wife said
softly, turning off the television. “That’s a murderer you’re talking about. He
apparently killed a child.”
“Yeah, but-”
Her words sounded
cool, detached, as she interrupted him, “All this time, you’ve been having
these nightmares, about… about a killer?”
The look on her face
made him want to disappear deep into the floor beneath him. If Belinda had
thought him to act a little crazy earlier, it was nothing compared to what she
obviously felt now. She looked at him as though she was seeing him for the
first time.
“
“What are you doing?”
“What d’you think I’m doing? I’m gonna try
and find him.”
“Find him! That’s a
person who shot a kid in cold blood, and you want to go and look for him?”
“He’s the only one who
can give me some answers!” Starsky retorted, as he was putting on one of his
dark blue jeans and zipped the closed.
“It’s more likely that he’ll kill you too! David, use your common
sense!”
“He’s suspected of killing a child. That
doesn’t mean he’s done it.” He had no idea why this small difference was so
important to him, but it felt good saying it.
Squinting, his wife’s
voice dropped to a wary, but sad whisper, “Who are you? I hardly recognize you
anymore.”
“Does it matter,” he
said, ignoring the question, for he wasn’t sure he knew the answer. “Look, you
don’t have to come with me, if you don’t want to.”
Belinda stared at him,
her eyes growing wide. Then her anger took over. “Fine,” she said, standing up
to pull her suitcase out from under the bed.
“What are you doing?” Starsky asked really confused.
“I’m going home.” She
stated, while walking over to the bathroom to pack the small things she’d left
in there. She opened the lid of her suitcase to throw the whole lot inside,
then closed and locked the thing permanently. “If you think I’m gonna sit here and wait, while you’re out tracking a wanted
criminal, you’re out of your mind.”
“
“No,” apparently not
wanting to stay for a minute longer, she went over to the door and opened it.
As she turned, her voice softened a bit. “Please come home with me, forget this
whole thing. What you want to do now is just… crazy. ” She looked like she
wanted to say something more, but somehow the words seem to fail her.
He looked at her. God
she was beautiful. For a second he was tempted to go with her, to head back to
His wife pursed her
lips together in obvious disappointment. Then, without another word, she softly
closed the door behind her.
Starsky sank down onto
the bed, staring forlornly at the black television screen, hoping against hope
that Belinda wasn’t right. That he hadn’t gone crazy.
Belinda was fuming,
and sped up the truck considerably after having just past one of
They never should have
left
His past was somewhat
of a mystery. She’d accepted that, along with the strange dreams and the weird
black outs. Oh yes, she knew he was having them. Hank from the store had told
her about it, as had Ms Bellcraft who’d seen David
almost crashing into the bus stop, yesterday. However, to her, the future was
what counted, not the past, and she had been willing to face it with him.
Though she never could have guessed it meant chasing after someone -in a
strange city no less- who had killed a kid for his own pleasure.
She’d meant what she’d
said. She didn’t recognise her husband anymore, not when he got stubborn like
this. It was almost as if someone else was doing the driving in his head. Probably the blonde from his dreams, she
snorted.
Taking the scenic
route to clear her head, she was nearing the outskirts of the City, heading in
the general direction of the Motel they’d stayed at, the day before. Slowly the
traffic around her lessened, and the city gave way to rough patches of farmland
here and there.
Briefly, Belinda
considered taking the highway again, but decided against it. As long as she
kept going north she would eventually cross the thing anyway. Come to think of
it, the Motel wasn’t such a bad idea. She could stay there overnight, and head
back to
She sighed. The
trouble was that she still trusted him. She loved him, and she knew he only
needed some time to come to his senses. That was why she had left for a while,
but she would never abandon him.
A loud noise coming
from the back of the pickup shook her out of her reverie. Her eyes flicked to
the rear-view mirror. They grew wide with shock as she noticed a dishevelled
blond man trying to hide himself in the truck.
A large bump in the
road bounced her in her seat, and made him visible again. Startled, she took in
a sharp breath, as she recognized the face from television. She broke out into
a cold sweat and felt her heart rate accelerating. Oh my God, what do I do now? What do I do now?
For a few seconds she
sat frozen behind the wheel, at a loss as to what to do next. Options were
racing through her mind. Stop at a police station, but there isn’t one around for miles. Look for a police car. That could take ages. Keep on driving. Great, and then what?
She really had no choice, hadn’t she?
Trembling with the
force of adrenaline running through her veins, Belinda opened the glove
compartment and took out the gun. David had objected fiercely when she’d
suggested they should take it with them, but she’d ignored him. In the end, her
husband had stopped arguing about it; mainly because he probably felt he was
wasting valuable time. She never felt more relieved for getting her way as she
did now when she closed her hand around the heavy grip of the weapon.
Paying close attention
to the rear-view mirror, she carefully hit the breaks, slowing down the pickup,
until it had come to a stand still next to a sand path, which headed off into
the densely overgrown fields, probably towards one of the farms located in this
area. She killed the engine, not stopping to think about what she was doing,
because that would only leave her rooted to her seat.
Exiting the truck, gun
in hand; she was just in time to see the man more falling than jumping onto the
sandy ground.
She aimed the gun.
The blond looked up,
and for a moment their eyes met. Backing off from her on the sand path, he
raised his hands.
David had always said
she was a great judge of character. That was one of the reasons why he loved
her so much. It didn’t always work to her advantage, however.
Like now.
For the terrified look
in his eyes, coupled with him shaking his head in what seemed to be utter
despair, made her doubt for a second if he was indeed capable of murdering a
child.
Of course he can, you fool.
Despair probably drove him to do it!
Then, before she could utter a single word, the blond turned and ran.
Finding herself unable to fire, Belinda just stood there, gun aimed
at his back. When he disappeared into the undergrowth she led out a sigh of
relieve. Well, she thought, lowering
the weapon. At least that proves I’m not
a killer.
She took a couple of
shaking breaths, trying to get her trembling under control before entering the
pickup again. From the side window, she suddenly noticed the mailbox located at
the start of the sand path. She squinted, barely able to make out the street
and house number written on it in white paint. Then her eyes followed the path,
which apparently led to private property.
With a sigh she sat
back in the seat. The man wouldn’t be getting far. Not in the condition he’s in, she thought. Most likely he’ll hide
himself for the night somewhere on that farm.
Although she felt a
slight twinge of quilt, her strong sense of justice overrode her hesitation.
Determined now, she started the engine, turned the pickup truck around and
headed back to
The telephone number
she’d seen on television flashed through her mind. With any luck the man would
still be on that farm when the search party would arrive.
Despite his brave
words spoken against his wife earlier, Starsky didn’t exactly jump at the
prospect of going out to find a wanted felon. So he decided to drive around
town first, to see if the daylight city scenes would be able to shed some light
on these images of his.
As the brunet entered
the yellow cab, the cabdriver looked at him with an odd expression on his face.
When Starsky pushed the subject, the man just shrugged, stating that he looked
familiar somehow, that was all. After ordering the man to just drive around
downtown for a while they drove off.
Instead of keeping his
eye on his surroundings, however, Starsky found his thoughts drifting back to
Belinda. He felt tremendously guilty for acting the way he had, for practically
asking her to leave if she felt she had to. Okay, he hadn’t said that in so
many words, but he knew that was what he had meant. She had come all this way
with him. She had stood by him all through his anxiety ordeal at the Motel
earlier. Only after his announcement to try and find a suspected murderer did
she draw the line.
And she was right of
course. Who wouldn’t hit the breaks at that? And now that she was gone he felt
more lost than ever. Maybe he should just turn around and head for home.
He sighed; unable to
make up his mind he turned his attention outward for a while. An hour went by
as, just as the night before, nothing looked in the least familiar to him. This
was getting him nowhere.
Deciding to walk
around for a bit, he paid the man and got out. Walking alongside dejected
looking bars and diners Starsky’s mood dropped again. The people passing by
were all wearing the grim expressions that city dwellers usually carried, the
bums sitting in the alleyways only adding to his depression.
What was he doing
here? Did he really think this ‘
Shaking his head in
misery, his rumbling stomach reminded him he had skipped breakfast that
morning. I might as well get something to
eat while I’m here, he thought wryly. Maybe that will clear my head a bit.
He picked out one of the many diners, and entered it. He chose to sit down at a
table located in a shady corner at the far end of the bar, where he wouldn’t be
bothered by the diner’s other clientele.
The waitress serving
him asked if he’d been here before, since he looked familiar to her, somehow.
But again, that was all she could tell him.
Starsky just muttered
his order and broodingly sank back in his chair. His eyes fell on the
television set on the corner of the bar, silently broadcasting the local news
over and over again.
With a grunt Starsky stood up to turn the thing off.
Nobody dared to turn it on again.
Delilah spotted the
familiar form sitting forlornly at the table right away. Sadness washed over
her as she noticed the mental state the detective was in.
Sometimes she wished
she didn’t have this ability to see what others couldn’t. A harmony lost, a
locked up soul, a light all but extinguished, but it wasn’t gone, not yet.
She bit her lip.
If anything this man
sure was a fighter, and although she couldn’t fix what was broken, anymore than
she could bring back her dead husband, she could do something else. She had to
be careful though. Revealing too much could destroy the fragile hold the man
had on the situation.
He didn’t notice the
woman entering the establishment until she was nearly on top of him. The brunet
looked up as he felt someone approaching him, to find a lady purposefully
stopping in front of his table. He frowned, “You’re looking awfully familiar,
have we met before?” Inwardly Starsky shook his head for asking the same stupid
question people seemed to be asking him all day.
A soft smile tugged at
her mouth. “Very briefly, a while back, Mr. Starsky. I saw you enter and
decided to follow you. Do you mind if I sit down?”
The calmness of her
voice seemed to take away some of the tension he was experiencing. Ignored her
question he raised an eyebrow and mocked, “Let me guess, I look familiar?”
“More than that, and I might be able to help you, if you would let me?
A glint of hope sparked
in his dark blue eyes. Although still on his guard he stood up and pulled out a
chair, graciously motioning for her to join him. “Now Miss…”
“Delilah, but you can call me-”
“Lilly.” Starsky
finished, his eyes growing slightly wider. He fell silent, as he tried to delve
into the black abyss that went with the name, and failing utterly in the
attempt.
She seemed to understand, and patiently waited for him to speak again.
Tired, the brunet held
on to the fact that at least he knew she’d spoken the truth. Apparently they
had been acquainted before. “So,” Starsky said hopefully, taking a deep breath,
“you know my name… what else?”
She stared at him with
sad green eyes. “I’m not here to give you those answers, David. You’ll have to
find them for yourself.”
He sat back,
disappointed. Frustration coloured his next question, “How? There’s nothing
there. Nothin’ in this city rings a bell. You’re the
first to maybe have an answer, but you won’t give it to me.” He wondered
briefly why he assumed she would understand his feelings, but then discarded
his reservations. After all, he had nothing left to loose, and she somehow
radiated a trustworthy atmosphere.
“Don’t look for them
out there, look for them in here.” Delilah said, aiming a finger at his chest.
Realizing he might as
well give her the whole picture, Starsky leaned forwards again. His voice
turned slightly bitter when quite unexpectedly her words seemed to tap into a
pool of fear, “The only thing I got in here are a bunch of dreams about a man
who turns out to be a homicidal maniac.”
“Are you sure they’re dreams?”
“What else could they
be?” He asked impatiently. This was getting him nowhere. Maybe if he’d hit the
street again, he would stumble onto something familiar.
Unconsciously Starsky
did pick up on the woman’s extra sensory perceptions. Unconsciously it scared
him. Normally, Hutch would be there to use his impeccable logic to counter
Starsky’s often out of control thoughts on all things superstitious, making fun
of the brunet, settling him down.
But that was gone.
There was nothing to
hold his fears in check. And the fact that Starsky did not realize where this
sudden unease washing over him came from, scared him even more. With an effort
he managed to hold his ground, ignoring the urge to run out onto the streets
again.
“Repressed memories,” she answered calmly.
Starsky froze, staring
at her as if she had just dropped a bomb in his lap. “That’s ridiculous,” he
finally said, suddenly more afraid than ever that she was right. Wasn’t that
why he’d come to
“But you do remember him, do you? Images, pain, even during the day?”
“Maybe, and maybe it’s just stress.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know for sure?”
Starsky eyed her
thoughtfully, his breathing became slightly more erratic as he couldn’t help
but let some of his uncertainty slip through. “I thought you said you couldn’t
help me?”
“I don’t have any
answers, but I can help unlock some of those memories, if you want? And maybe
that will help.
“I… I dunno…” He felt confused; part of him didn’t want to face
the truth. Part of him wanted to stay safe in the world he was in now. Then why
was he trembling all of a sudden?
Lilly noticed it and
gently grabbed onto his shaking hands. “You’re going to have to trust me,
though? You think you can do that?”
His heart throbbed in
his throat. Why was this so damn hard? What was he so afraid of? Wasn’t this
what he’d been looking for, a way to find an answer? He breathed in deeply,
trying to squash his fears. “Okay, if that’s what it takes.”
“Okay,” she said,
sitting up a bit, but not letting go of his hands. “The best thing to do is to
try and find out what triggered these… images… of yours in the first place,
agreed?”
He shrugged. “The
dreams just started one night. I don’t know why. You’re saying there’s a
reason?”
“Maybe. If they are suppressed memories, something
must have happened that caused them to surface all of a sudden.”
Although Starsky
couldn’t think of any plausible reason, for the week in which they had started
had been a perfectly ordinary one, her logic made sense. So he nodded, and
looked around to make sure nobody was paying any attention to them. But he
needn’t have worried. Except for a costumer in a far off booth, the place had
emptied.
“Now, close your eyes,
relax. Try to think back to the time when these dreams first appeared. Can you
picture that moment?
He nodded again. Her
hands felt warm, soothing, and he found himself drifting away. With a shock he
tried to stay focussed.
“No, let it,” she ordered. “Now, try to recall that initial dream, the
images. Try to relive it.”
Starsky felt himself
tense up as he raised the courage to face that part of him which scared him to
death. With a trembling sigh he let the feeling of utter loneliness take hold
again.
“I’ll have to warn you, you’ll feel a bit nauseous in a moment.”
He braised himself.
The nausea came all right, but so did an image so vividly that he couldn’t pull
away from it, no matter how hard he tried. The blue eyed blond man didn’t fade
this time as Delilah helped Starsky to fight the all too familiar barriers
within him.
Something violently
stirred within him. Nausea intensified, he felt sick, but bravely held onto the
image, to the despair he started to feel, to the love which suddenly filled his
heart. Instinctively he lashed onto it. And something inside him triumphantly
connected … hard… with the quiet peace that had been Hutch, right before he’d
given in, and was gone.
With a silent sob,
Starsky tried to pull his hands free from Lilly’s grip, but she wouldn’t let
him.
“Not yet! … Trust me.”
He whimpered as he
tried to quell the unexpected pain of unbearable loss. The moment which
triggered that first dream suddenly clarified, and Starsky could see it in
front of him… as clear as day. And he knew… for a few seconds, who the blond
man was.
He saw his partner lying on the floor on his
side, broken inside and out, staring into nothing in particular, taking in
shallow breaths.
He saw the decision being made deep within the
blond’s soul, a decision born out of hopelessness and destruction.
Hutch gave one more conscious
sigh…then calmly closed his eyes… and gave up.
And in his sleep, all those months ago, with Belinda as his witness,
Starsky had cried.
With a start he found
himself back in reality. His eyes watered as he pulled in his hands. Even as
the knowledge of his connection to this blond man slipped through his fingers,
the heartbreaking scene which he’d just experienced stayed with him. And he
remembered the name.
Lilly let him go.
Gasping, he whispered, “Hutch, not
“You remember?” Lilly asked.
He shook his head,
running down his face to pull himself back together. The hand closed, his fist
covering his mouth. He took a couple of deep breaths. “I don’t know…” he said,
opening his hand, shaking his head again. “But I do know who holds all the
answers.”
The women in front of him gave a genuine smile.
He stood up, walked over, and firmly placed a kiss on her cheek.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
“Where are you going?”
“To find me a killer.”
“Thank you, Belinda. Now don’t worry, everything will be all right.”
“I hope so,” she
answered the man on the other end of the line. “I just want you to get this
killer off the streets.”
“It might take us a
while to organize a search party and get there, but as I promised, we’ll take
care of it.”
She hung up the phone.
It bothered her somewhat that the number she’d dialled turned out to be that of
the child’s mother, not of the police. She shrugged. As long as the culprit was
being captured, it didn’t matter to her who did it, or how it was done. The man,
who turned out to be the mother’s brother, had sounded a bit revengeful, but
who wouldn’t be after your nephew had gotten murdered. The killer would get
what he deserved, no more, no less.
Now that she was able to let go of the whole experience she sighed with
relief.
The moment Belinda had
entered the hotel room it was obvious to her that David hadn’t been back here
since this morning. Everything looked exactly the same since she had left.
After having placed the call she was sitting on the bed, contemplating over
what to do next. Deciding she might as well wait for him here, she lay down on
the thick mattress.
She was nearly asleep,
when the door opened and her husband walked in. A hopeful grin was added to the
surprised look on the brunet’s face. “Hey, you came back?”
“Yeah,” she smiled,
and told him what had happened. She never intended to keep him in the dark
about her encounter with the blond, and hoped it would make him see enough
reason to return home with her.
She was wrong.
To her astonishment he
grabbed her by the arm and asked, “Do you think you can find your way back to
that farm?”
“Dave-” she said in
shock, her words dying in her throat as she noticed the spark of vulnerability
concealed within his eyes. She’d never been able to resist that. Besides, what
could possibly happen? Help would be hot on their trails, and by tonight the
blond would be either captured or dead, anyway. So what if her husband wanted to try and look for him? Even if he was on that farm, she doubted the
blond would come out of hiding. “Okay, I’ll take you there, but you have to
promise me you’ll take the gun with you.”
“Anything you say, sweetheart.” He said softly and held the door open
for her to exit.
She shook her head. “You’re still a flatterer, did you know that?
Her husband just smiled, and closed the door behind them.
Chapter 26
They’d tried the front door, but nobody seemed to be home.
The barnyard was
covered in silence. Starsky stood in the middle of it. His wife stood a little
to the side. “You’re sure he’s here?”
Belinda answered
thoughtfully, “Not a full hundred percent. No. But judging by his appearance, I
think he was lucky enough to get this far. Besides, there isn’t another farm
around here for miles.”
Taking a careful step
forwards, Starsky meticulously watched the surrounding buildings. They were
standing in front of the main house. The wings consisting of large stables and
a wide barn containing a hayloft, enveloped the yard like two surrounding arms,
leaving an open space to serve as the road entrance where the two arms met.
The barnyard was
covered with soft white sand, with pavement heading alongside the buildings. A
few white-cottoned clouds in the otherwise crystal blue afternoon air covered
part of the farm in cold shadows.
“Hutch?” Starsky’s raw uncertain voice was clearly audible across the yard.
He closed his eyes for
a second, shutting out his wife, trying to focus on the feelings Lilly had
managed to draw out of him an hour ago. What to say to a man he wasn’t even
sure really existed? What to say to a man whom he’d only seen fleeting images
from on television? Who might be the ruthless killer everyone made him out to
be?
The brunet opened his
eyes, clearing his throat to try again. If there was any truth to the life he’d
been leading so far, he would find out now. He decided to just go with the flow
and let his senses guide him.
“Hutch?” His voice was firm now, as he started to walk
across the yard. Belinda, who had been raised on a farm, had told him that if
the man were hiding here, it would probably be somewhere near
the barn area, so that was where he was heading.
“It’s me… Starsky,” he
continued to walk. “Would you please come out? I’d like to talk to you.”
A few chickens
scuttled the dust in front of him as he neared the large barn. He stopped on
the threshold, uncertain about what to do next. The dark, dusty space looked
hostile, and empty. He walked inside.
“Do you even remember
me?” He asked, letting his eyes wander over the barn’s interior and the dark
hayloft. “I remember you… Well, flashes of you really… I remember you running…
then standing still and getting shot.”
Starsky hesitated before continuing quietly. “I remember me going crazy
over it.”
A soft shuffling sound
came from above. His head snapped up, suddenly certain that he wasn’t talking
to thin air. The certainty inside him kept whispering to keep talking. “… I
don’t remember ‘why’, though… sorry.”
He sighed. “It’s so frustrating not to remember. All I remember are some
feelings… images.”
He carefully walked
on, soundlessly, as the floor was covered in a thing layer of dry straw. slowly his eyes got used to the dark as they stole over the
shape of massive wooden beams above his head, almost running into the iron bulk
of an old tractor as he did so.
“Were we close? Huh? Cos, I really don’t know,” he said, pulling away from the
large metallic farm equipment and heading deeper inside the barn. “All I know
is I’ve got this empty feelin’ inside me and it just
won’t go away... Look, if you’d just show yourself, talk to me, maybe we can
make some sense of this mess we’re in.”
Silence.
“Damn,” Starsky
cursed, shaken a bit by his own confession. He was beginning to doubt Hutch was
even here. Maybe it was just a rat he’d heard. However, his heart was telling
him a different story, and that ruled his actions right now.
“Hutch…” he continued softly. “I know you’re here…”
He turned around,
walking slowly back towards the exit. “I know you didn’t do it… I know you
loved that kid, I-” The brunet stopped talking and walking at the same time. He
looked up, confused as to how he would know that.
An image of a daisy drifted by.
“Hutch, the flowers…
D’ you remember the flowers?” He shook his head, and lowered it with a snort,
trying to get a grip on himself as he felt like a crazed preacher man talking
to the sky to no one in particular… about a bunch of flowers. “Don’t know what
that means either though…”
“Me and thee, buddy.”
The soft spoken voice
descending from the loft seemed to freeze all motion, both outside and inside
his body. Starsky felt his heart skipping a few beats as Hutch’s presence
instantly filled it, making him realize that he wasn’t crazy. All the stuff
he’d been dreaming, seeing, hearing, all of it… was real. All of it… was part
of him. All of it… was true.
“Yeah,” he smiled, looking up. “Yeah.”
The familiar voice did
something else, it triggered a memory. He saw his partner pulling back from him
as they were standing in a long dark corridor belonging to a large house, and
he heard his own angry voice echo from the past. What about… me and thee? Huh?
Buddy? What happened to that? Slowly the image began to make sense
Starsky started to
walk around again, his eyes never leaving the loft. Now that he knew Hutch was
up there, he could go up, and search for him. But he didn’t want to do that. It
was better if the man was to come to him.
“Hutch… I remember the
trust we had… I-” he halted as suddenly, a whole load of emotions flooded into
his voice.
Your soul will remember… Delilah’s words, he recalled them.
Tears stung his eyes.
“I… Jesus… Hutch… we were… partners…” he stopped as he realized he was ranting.
Desperately, he threw his hands in the air. “Will you come out now, please,
huh?”
The silence was penetrated by another soft spoken reply. “They’ll kill
me… Starsk.”
The brunet bit his lip, shaking his head. “No, I won’t let them… You
didn’t do it! You-”
Another memory
ruthlessly pushed aside all other images: They were standing in a large storage
area… surrounded. He saw the blond, gun in hand… ordering him to get out. He
gasped at the sudden scene replaying in his head, the words he’d said back then
and the words he kept hearing now. Are
you crazy! They will kill you!
“You… you threw me
out.” He spoke softly, facing the floor in astonishment, trembling all over as
he started to recall the whole event. “Jesus… you held them off.”
He looked up as his
eyes started to water. “You got shot… I saw it… And I left you there. Oh… God…
I just… left you there!” Too overwhelmed with shock, his anger took the
opportunity to slip out. “God dammit,
Hutch! Will you come out, now! Please!”
Silence descended once again, around him and in his heart.
A noise came from
behind him, from the hayloft. Starsky turned to see Hutch standing there, beneath
a sturdy wooden ladder. He wasn’t just an illusion, he was real.
His friend… Feelings
rushed him. Tears stung his eyes again as he took in the site. A feeling of
protectiveness he hadn’t felt in a long, long time covered him like a warm
blanket. Hutch stood there, looking forlorn, lost, much like he did when they
both had arrested
That memory made him gasp.
The silent blond man
in front of him looked so much worse right now. His eyes were sad, broken.
Still, Hutch tentatively reached out with one hand as if trying to touch a
mirage, not really sure it was there. “Starsk?”
The soft spoken word
caused something to explode in the brunet’s head. And he remembered. Oh God he
remembered… everything! He took a staggering step forwards to slowly close his
fingers around his partner’s hand. It was shaking. He grabbed it more firmly,
feeling the tremors shooting through the both of them.
The warmth… Hutch was real. All of this was real.
He shook his head, too overwhelmed and just smiled.
“I… I had to get you
out of there… I couldn’t let…
Starsky just pulled
him in, holding him tight in a hug they both so very much needed. He closed his
eyes, drinking in the reality and letting a few tears slip.
Hutch just mumbled through a few tears of his own, “You couldn’t help
it… you couldn’t.”
The sounds of multiple
car engines grew louder, apparently closing in on their position. They let go of each other, and the blond took
a frightened step back. “Starsk, I didn’t do it… I …”
The helplessness
Starsky saw coursing through his terrified partner broke his heart. “I know.”
As the blond was
standing there, watching the road from the barn entrance in apathy, the brunet
knew Hutch had come to the end of the line. He was too tired to hide anymore,
too tired to fight.
“I know,” he repeated steadfastly as six cars entered the barnyard.
It was too late to run.
Chapter 27
Belinda stood at the
sideline, watching. Tears streamed down her face as she recognized the scene
for what it was: the reunion of two lost souls. She knew it was right, she knew
she’d been wrong, and that she had made a terrible mistake by calling in the
troops. Her attention drifted towards
the car’s driving up the dirt road.
“Protect him!” She
shouted as she headed for the first car to head it off, determined to undo what
she had done, if it wasn’t already too late.
“
Belinda turned
halfway, shouting again, angry this time. Her voice sounded shrill, and
tearful, “Protect him!”
The dust settled as
the cars halted their forward motion in front of the woman standing in their
paths. Doors opened, releasing at least three men per car.
Starsky pushed Hutch back beneath the dark recesses of the hayloft, and
reached for his gun.
The crowd, consisting
of at least twenty people, started to move in his direction as soon as they’d
spotted the brunet.
“Listen to me!” Belinda shouted.
Walking in the front line, Helen and her three brothers stopped to look
at her.
“You’re making a mistake! You’re condemning an innocent man!”
“Innocent?” Helen spat
out the words. “I saw that man with the blood of Tommy on his hands!”
“He didn’t do it! It was probably a setup!”
One of Helen’s
brothers took a step forwards. “I remember your voice. You called us; gave us
this location. You were on our side? What happened? Did he get to you?”
“No, no, no,” unable to conceal the despair in her voice, his wife’s
eyes flew back to Starsky.
Suddenly, sounding
from an unseen position in the crowd, Karl’s voice rang through the air,
shouting out loud, “There he is!”
They all spotted Hutch
standing slightly concealed behind the brunet. The bloodthirsty, angry crowd
rushed forwards.
Starsky’s heart sank
into his stomach as he saw his wife being roughly thrown aside. She hit the
sand with a dull thud. He looked over his shoulder, spotting his partner taking
a step back. Their eyes locked for a moment. The familiar feeling of speaking
without words, told the brunet of the pure terror now coursing through the
blond’s body.
Turning his attention
back onto the crowd, Starsky pulled out the gun, which he’d taken out of the
glove compartment earlier and had tucked into
the back of his pants. He aimed, yelling a warning, “Get back!”
But he might as well
have tried and stop an oncoming storm, they didn’t listen. He shot one round in
front to Helen’s feet.
She skidded to a halt.
“Get back! Don’t come
any closer!” Starsky yelled fiercely.
The crowd behind Helen
surged forwards, moving Helen along with them. For a second, Starsky hesitated,
torn between saving his partner, and shooting at innocent people gone crazy by
the crowds killing mentality.
Someone yelled at Hutch in hateful aggression. “GET HIM! GET HIM!”
The moment of
indecision passed as fear seemed to close an icy hand around his soul. “GOD
DAMMIT, HE DIDN’T DO IT! HE DIDN’T DO IT!” Starsky was about to fire another
warning shot, when a vicious kick in his back, coming from behind, sent his gun
sailing through the air… and well out of reach.
He fought off his
attacker, who tried to lock his arms behind him, only to have to fight off
three more men, while the rest of the crowd ran past him. “NO!” Caught in the
fury of the fight he managed to catch a glimpse of a dozen people descending on
his partner. “HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” He yelled in despair as he realized he
couldn’t stop them.
“HUTCH!”
Hutch tried to back
away, but there was no escape route left. One man gave him a full blow to the
face. He tried to block it, but couldn’t block the next one directed at his
stomach, or the next one, or the next one.
With each kick the crowd seemed to go more berserk.
He fell down on his
knees, and was beaten to the ground where he curled up in a useless attempt to
protect himself.
Starsky managed to
shake off his attackers as their attention momentarily shifted to the aggressive
attack going on in the barn. He didn’t waist any time, and ran for the
commotion.
“DAVID!”
Belinda’s panicked
scream made him turn just in time to see Karl aiming at him. With his own gun
no less.
Karl smiled.
Starsky stood way out
in the open. There was no place to hide. Karl… The man who’d set them up, who’d
driven them apart, who’d destroyed his memories, his life… now tried to kill
the both of them.
As Karl fired, Belinda
jumped in front of the man… and sank to the ground. Shock riddled the brunet’s
face, but Karl only smiled, and fired again.
No bullets, no sound. The gun was empty.
Starsky didn’t wait to
see what happened next. He spun around, tears stinging his eyes as he thought
of Belinda, her words still ringing in his ears. Protect him!
He dove headfirst into
the wild crowd, screaming, beating, and viciously fighting people off. He
reached his partner who was lying on the floor, desperately trying to protect
his head and chest area… unmoving. He realized Hutch had lost consciousness.
Starsky did the only
thing he could think of, and threw himself onto his partner, protecting him
from the blows that kept coming, cashing them in himself.
He heard the crowd yelling crazy lines like: Get him off! Get them apart! And going even crazier when Starsky held on to his partner like a
pit bull.
The scene became
surreal. In the midst of the beating, pulling and shoving, the close touch with
his partner finally broke down all remaining barriers. He remembered holding
him when Forest had first drugged the blond, he remembered Hutch taking care of
him after he’d been shot in that restaurant, he remembered Terry; he remembered
Gillian.
He remembered what had
happened when Karl had injected him. He remembered the forgetting… the pain…
the broken bond… so this time, his heart, his soul, his body held on… tight.
Sirens suddenly
shattered the air. Reality, presented by half of
Within no time the crowd had dispersed.
Groggily Starsky
unwind his cramped muscles, stiffly letting go of his partner. He put his feet
beneath him, and slowly stood up. Blinking he took in the scene. A dozen or
more police cars had come to a halt, their blue and red lights ricocheting off
the walls and faces alike.
Both Hutch and his wife Belinda were lying still on the ground.
He closed his eyes,
biting his lip to fight back tears. He knew his wife was dead. He opened them again to look at his partner.
Unconsciousness had left the blond no longer curled up in a ball, badly
bruised, but still alive.
He got down to his
knees and picked him up. The man had lost such an amount of weight that he
wasn’t even heavy. Silently he carried him past the barn doors, and out into
the open. He stopped for a brief moment at the body of Belinda. He closed his
eyes, pushing away the grief he knew had to be released sooner or later. He
could mourn her later. Right now he had to focus on the living. Then he walked
on, carrying his friend away from there.
Chapter 28
“Well, I should have known you were here.” Huggy dropped down onto a chair opposite the brunet’s bed,
and put his feet up. “Starsky, d’ you know half of the nursing staff is looking
for you?”
The bartender had paid a brief visit
to the room where Starsky was supposed to be recuperating - two floors up – and
just in time had spotted the head nurse talking irately to her staff in the
middle of the empty room. She was demanding to know how a patient of theirs
could have disappeared overnight. Huggy had backed
off quietly as he had a hunch where Starsky might have gone.
“Sorry,” Starsky said softly, “but I
decided to move my sleeping accommodations down here, until he wakes up.”
“The nurses won’t be happy about that,
my man.” His eyes locked onto the still form on the second bed.
“Yeah, well, I’m not leavin’.”
Huggy watched his tired friend trying to sit up, and
wondered how he had managed to drag himself two floors down in the first place.
“Where did you get the bed?”
Starsky showed a wry little grin. “I kinda took it with me.”
Shaking his head, the bartender wisely
decided not to delve into that statement too much. He smiled inwardly; no
wonder the head nurse had been livid.
“Hug,” Starsky said gratefully, “I owe
you, we both do, big time.”
Huggy just shrugged, “Happy to oblige.”
After the police had been informed about the murder at Helen’s place, and learned the identity of the possible suspect, Dobey had sent his man out to look for Hutch at once. However, the local news had thrown the entire investigation in a downward spiral, as Metro had become swamped with phone calls from anxious citizens who were demanding to know why the police were covering up for one of their detectives. “You should’ve seen