Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction written solely for
the enjoyment of fellow fans. No
infringement on anyone's copyright is intended. No profit is being made from this story.
This story is part two in a series and is the sequel to Bad Penny.
© January 2002
Lionel Rigger was bored.
He refused to watch the Western Starsky had tuned in on the television
set, despite Starsky’s endorsement that in this one, the Indians won. Being cooped up for the past week in a
small, run down hotel had been difficult.
Starsky and Hutch had the man under their constant protection after they
were forced to reveal his name in open court as the informant who had tipped
them to Judge McClellan’s illegal activities.
Starsky had just admonished Rigger to stay away from the window...
again. Hutch was off to the grocery
store to pick up something for them to eat.
When he heard Hutch’s car in the street below, Starsky looked out
the window and told Rigger the food was there.
He wasn’t expecting what happened next.
Hutch had just rolled up the driver side window and shut the door. As he crossed to the middle of the street,
the nondescript Ford exploded into a ball of flame, throwing the detective into
the air and tumbling him to the asphalt.
Starsky felt a rush of adrenaline as he watched in horror as Hutch
was flung to the ground. He spun
around, striding quickly toward Lionel.
He guided Lionel to sit on the bed and said, “Stay put, right where you
are!” Starsky dashed out of the room,
down the stairs, and into the street.
Lionel rose and crept toward the window to watch the action.
Hutch lay face down on the street, eyes open, but vacant. Starsky knelt in front of him, never
noticing Soldier, a hit man, who had just blown up Hutch’s car and was now
watching from the sidelines. As soon as
he was certain Starsky was occupied, Soldier headed up the hotel stairs.
Starsky called to his partner. “Hey! Hey!” he said as he slapped
the ground in front of the unresponsive man.
“Hey!”
Unable to bring Hutch around this way, Starsky scooted behind him
and gently turned him onto his lap, saying, “Come on, Hutch, come on.” He rubbed Hutch’s hair, and cupped his face,
terrified at the open eyes coupled with a lack of responsiveness. “You okay?
Hey, come on, now, it’s me, huh? Huh?”
Hutch’s eyes blinked and took on some recognition. “Yeah,” he answered weakly.
“Yeah? You sure?” Starsky
asked, still frantically assessing his partner’s condition.
“Yeah, I guess so, I guess so....” Hutch said.
Starsky tried to slow his breathing, embracing his friend to
assure himself everything would be all right.
He and Hutch both looked over at the burning wreck that was once Hutch’s
vehicle.
“‘S My car,” Hutch said as he tried to rise.
Starsky pulled at him and replied, “Come here, forget your car.”
“My car!” Full realization had just hit Hutch. His car was a total loss.
An exasperated Starsky pulled him down into his lap again and
replied, “Your car’s all right for crying out loud, you’re lucky you’re here!”
While he helped Hutch continue to recover his senses and got the
man to his feet, Soldier made his way into Lionel’s room. When Soldier opened the door, Lionel turned
and looked at the hit man, fear displayed on his face as he registered
Soldier’s intent.
Soldier smiled malevolently and said, “Hello, pigeon, let’s see if
you can fly.”
A single gunshot wound to the chest, fired from a gun with a
silencer, sent Lionel crashing through the window to the street below, dead
before he hit the ground. Soldier
quietly slipped down the stairs and out the back door to the alley behind the
hotel. He escaped undetected.
When they heard the crash, Starsky and Hutch looked up to see the
answer to Soldier’s question. Lionel
Rigger couldn’t fly. The two detectives rushed over to the fallen man. Starsky slipped in the broken glass on the
street, letting go of his hold on his shaky partner. Hutch sank to the ground and landed hard on his hip. The two men looked at what had happened to
the man they’d sworn to keep safe. They
knew he was dead before they turned him onto his back, but the bloody evidence
was now seared into both of their minds.
After they looked at each other in stricken silence for a few moments,
Hutch put a hand up over his eyes. His
heart sank, his head throbbed, and his body felt like it had been dragged under
a truck. He fought waves of dizziness, unwilling to tell Starsky that his
vision was cloudy. They had enough to
worry about with their witness lying dead next to them. The sound of sirens in the distance snapped
Hutch out of it.
“I’ll call Dobey,” Hutch said as he tried to rise. The street was spinning in his vision and he
sank back to the ground, shaking his head to clear it.
“You stay with Lionel,” Starsky ordered. “I’ll call. Do you need
an ambulance?”
“No, just get someone here for Lionel.”
Starsky got up and headed into the hotel to call the captain. At least he had some privacy – everyone
inside the hotel had streamed out onto the street, including the desk
clerk. He heard the squad cars and a
fire engine as they screamed onto the small street, their sirens winding down
to silence. The sound of their activity
played in the background of Starsky’s hearing until Captain Dobey picked up on
the other end of the line.
“Cap, Starsky,” he said, the tension clear in his voice.
“Starsky, what’s going on?” Dobey knew something was wrong.
“They got to him, Cap. Lionel’s dead,” Starsky said flatly.
“WHAT? What happened? Where are you?” Dobey asked in a rush.
“I made a mistake, Cap. Oh, God. I....” Starsky stopped, unsure of
how to explain what was rushing through his head.
“Starsky?” Dobey inquired.
“Cap, they got to Hutch, first, and....”
“Is he dead?” the captain interrupted.
The thought chilled Starsky.
“No, he’s okay. They blew up his
car in the middle of the street. I...
Dammit!” he exclaimed as he slammed his fist onto the desk next to the phone.
“It was a rookie mistake, Cap! Dammit!”
“Starsky, calm down. You’re not making much sense. Take a breath and tell me what
happened.” Dobey’s voice was firm,
bringing Starsky back to some sense of equilibrium.
“Sorry, Cap. I’m guessing
the guy who got Lionel rigged Hutch’s car.
We’re gonna need a crime lab team to investigate it. When Hutch stepped away from the car, the
thing blew sky high. He went flying,
Cap. I... he was lying in the street,
and defenseless. I told Lionel to stay
put and ran down to check on Hutch.
While I was bringing him around, someone got up into the hotel and shot
Rigger. I’m sorry, Cap. Dear God, what
have I done?”
“Stop that, Dave. You go
out there and take care of the scene.
I’m headed down there now.”
Dobey was worried about the guilt trip he could see his detective
starting.
“All right, Cap.” He tried to hang up, but heard the captain
bellow his name.
“Starsky!”
“Yeah, Cap?” he said as he put the phone back to his ear.
“Don’t talk to anyone outside of the department. The media may show up there. You got that?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Starsky hung up the phone and looked out the door. His partner had removed his jacket and
covered Rigger’s face with it. He was
doing his best, along with some uniforms, to get the people back away from the
area. As Starsky stepped out, Hutch
looked up at him, then up at the broken window, conveying the message that he
wanted Starsky to go up and have a look at the room. Starsky nodded and went back inside the hotel and up the stairs.
The room looked just like he’d left it. The only difference was the broken out window. He stepped over to it and looked down at the
street. He could hear more squad cars
coming. Starsky closed his eyes and
tucked his chin, slumping his shoulders dejectedly.
“I’m sorry, Lionel. I let
you down, buddy,” he whispered to the empty room. He turned around to return to help his partner with the scene.
~*~*~*~
Later that day, Starsky and Hutch were both interviewed by
Internal Affairs. An investigation
would be conducted into both their actions.
Hutch was quickly excused. He was not the one who had abandoned their
charge. Refusing to allow the blond
detective to remain with his partner, the investigating officers forced Starsky
to stay in the room with them alone.
Hutch went out and paced the hall while they spoke with Starsky. He was relieved when Captain Dobey started
walking down the hall toward him fifteen minutes later.
“Cap, can you get in there with him? Simonetti refused to let me stay,” Hutch said angrily as he
punched his left palm with his right fist.
Somehow, Hutch always managed to say the Internal Affairs officer’s name
like it was a dirty word.
“Settle down, Hutch. They
just called me. Why don’t you go
downstairs and get some coffee?” Dobey suggested.
Hutch gave him his best “you’re kidding” look and resumed his
pacing. Captain Dobey sighed and asked,
“How’s your head?”
“I’m fine, Cap. Get in
there, huh? Don’t let them railroad
Starsky for looking after his partner.”
Hutch looked as miserable as Dobey could remember him ever looking. The captain nodded and took a few steps
toward the door, but it opened before he reached it.
A subdued looking Starsky stepped through it, barely meeting
Dobey’s eyes before he stepped aside for the older man to enter.
After the door shut behind Dobey, Starsky sighed and dropped his
shoulders. “How you feeling, Hutch?” he
asked, trying to deflect the attention from himself.
Hutch’s answering laugh had no humor in it. “Me?
I’m fine, but you look like I should be hustling you out the door on the
way to Bolivia, or maybe I should offer you a cigarette and a blindfold.” He patted Starsky’s shoulder.
“I can’t tell what they’re going to decide. They said they had to talk to Dobey first.”
One of the uniforms was walking toward them when he said, “Sorry
to hear about your snitch, guys.”
Hutch whirled around on the man, his eyes displaying his
anger. “Lionel Rigger wasn’t just a
‘snitch’, Dodson. He was a friend. He had a wife and a little girl and we
promised them....” Starsky stopped his
tirade by putting a hand on Hutch’s arm.
Dodson looked contrite when he said, “Sorry, Hutchinson. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Starsky answered for his seething partner. “We know, it’s just a little raw.”
The other officer shook his head and walked away from them. Starsky and Hutch held each other’s gaze for
a few moments before Starsky said, “You don’t have anything to feel bad about,
Hutch. I’m the one that let Lionel
down. You’re in the clear.”
“I don’t feel that way about it, Starsk. I’d have done the same thing you did.”
The door opened again and Dobey came into the hall alone. He told them both he wanted to see them in
his office. The lump in Starsky’s
throat became a rock that fell straight to his gut. He nodded, tight lipped, and turned away from the other two men. Hutch sighed and fell in behind his
partner. Hutch had already made up his
mind that if Starsky took the fall, he would go down with him. His despair over what had happened was
eating away at him. Ken Hutchinson knew
in his heart that he’d had enough.
The two men sat in the chairs in Dobey’s office. Their boss closed the door and sat behind
his desk. “The investigation will take
a few days to officially close, but unofficially, they will not be bringing any
disciplinary actions against either of you.”
Starsky said, “That’s just dandy for Hutch, Cap, but I left that
man to die.”
“Now, wait a minute, Starsky.
The system is the problem here, not you,” Hutch said in Starsky’s
defense.
“Both of you can it and listen for a minute!” When Dobey could see that he had their
attention, he continued, “Starsky,
Simonetti says you should have stayed in the room with Lionel, but that under
the circumstances, your actions were understandable... if not completely
justified.”
Starsky said, “But, Cap....”
“Look, Hutch was lying in the middle of the street. He could have been killed by a car coming
around that corner too fast, if not by the person who obviously set off the
explosives. What about that? Do you have any idea who could have done
it?”
“None,” Hutch said. Then
he snapped his fingers and said, “Wait a minute! A guy was under his car parked next to mine at the grocery
store. Could have been him.”
Dobey nodded. “You see his
face?”
“Course not. Look, Cap,
I’m glad we’re okay with I.A. on this, but this whole situation stinks. We should never have had to put Lionel out
there.”
Starsky shook his head.
“That’s just not the way it works, Hutch. We knew it could happen.
We had it all planned and it fell apart. I don’t care what I.A. says, I feel responsible.”
Hutch heard his partner and took what he said to heart. In his mind, they were responsible. The bitter feeling that police work had
turned him into something he no longer wanted to be was chipping away at his
sense of who he was. Hutch thought, if this is why I became a cop, what the hell
am I doing? He looked over at
Starsky, seeing the same pain on his face.
In that moment, all he wanted was for that pain to stop being a part of
their daily existence. If this was all
there was, he didn’t want any part of it anymore. Over the past year, he had become increasingly cynical and jaded
about his job. He was tired of that
spilling over into his soul. The only
problem he had even thinking about walking away from it was what to tell Starsky
– who was the only reason he was still on the job.
“I know, Starsky, but sometimes your best just isn’t enough,”
Dobey said. “I know you feel
terrible... hell, I do, too. What went
down, did. I’ve already talked to
Mardean. Why don’t you go on home. Start on the investigation in the morning.”
Both detectives stood up and Hutch said, “We gotta go see Huggy,
Cap. Tell him how sorry we are.”
Dobey nodded as they left his office. He was worried about the
defeated stance he saw in both of his officers. The circumstances of this case were bad. His instincts were telling him that they
might be too much for Starsky and Hutch to take and he said a silent prayer
that he wasn’t about to lose his best detective team.
~*~*~*~
Huggy refused to listen to their lame attempts at apology for what
had happened to Lionel, and Hutch couldn't say he blamed him. But the hardest
thing to take was the little girl.
"You’re the policemen, aren't you?" she said, clinging
to "Uncle" Huggy. "The ones who made my daddy go away. I thought
you were his friends."
The pain that crossed Starsky's face echoed the one in Hutch's
heart. Starsky's eyes misted over, and as Huggy walked away, carrying the
child, Hutch forced out the words, "So did we, sweetheart..." but
they sounded stupid, even to his own ears, and neither Huggy nor Jamie acknowledged
that he'd spoken. Starsky blinked rapidly, staring down at the sand, and didn't
look up until after Huggy was out of sight.
"My God," was all he said, but his voice shook.
Hutch swallowed the lump in his own throat. He reached out to
touch Starsky's arm, but Starsky stepped away, shaking his head miserably.
"Come on," Hutch said. "We might as well go home."
They made the drive in complete silence, the traffic on the police
radio the only sound until Starsky reached over and savagely snapped it off.
That was against regs, but Hutch didn't comment. He couldn't stand to listen to
it, either.
"You comin' up?" Hutch asked when Starsky stopped in
front of Venice Place and didn't shut the car off.
Starsky shook his head without speaking.
"Might help to talk it out," Hutch offered softly.
Starsky drew a long breath and looked over at him, finally.
"Ya think?" he said bitterly. "I don't. A man's dead. Ain't
nothin' we can say, either of us, to change that. Just like Huggy said."
"Huggy's angry and in pain," Hutch said, again feeling
the words were stupid.
"He's got a right," Starsky said, turning his head away
again. "Go on. I need to think. Maybe I'll go to a movie or
somethin'."
Hutch sighed and opened the car door. "Give me a call
later?"
"Sure." Starsky pulled away the moment Hutch was out and
had shut the door, and Hutch climbed the stairs to his apartment, feeling worse
than he ever had.
A lot of people had died because of them in the years they'd been
cops, Hutch thought, sinking onto his couch and throwing his head back. Too
many. The bad guys, he didn't worry too much about. Part of the deal, couldn't
be helped, and largely due to their own choices. But what about the good guys?
What about Terry and Gillian? Janice Drew? Or people like Roxy, who might be
alive if he and Starsky hadn't screwed up?
And now Jamie Rigger would grow up without her daddy because this
time he and Starsky had royally fucked up. There was no other way to look at
it. Lionel had tried to do the right thing. Sure, he'd made bad choices of his
own, but he'd tried to make up for them. And they'd promised to protect him, to
get him out.
He'd become a cop to help people, not to ruin their lives. So what
was he doing here?
Feeling too restless to sit still, in spite of bone-deep
weariness, Hutch rose and slammed out of his apartment, heading for the beach.
Maybe a walk would clear his head.
The beach was deserted; it was early in the season and too cool
yet, for any but the most dedicated surfers to be out, and even they only came
out in the early morning. With the rays of the afternoon sun making his eyes
sting – at least, that's what he blamed the stinging on – Hutch walked along,
hands in pockets, eyes down. He accidentally kicked a pinwheel lying on the
sand and squatted to pick it up. He remembered the pinwheel Lionel had with him
the day they met. Idly watching it spin
in the breeze, he thought about the look in Jamie's eyes as Huggy had carried
her away. He could still hear the accusation in Huggy's voice when he called
them "users." Is that what they'd become? Or had they been users all
along? Was the bust more important than the human lives they touched – and
sometimes destroyed – every day?
He closed his eyes and could still see Lionel falling out of that
window, see the blood on his t-shirt after he and Starsky had turned him over.
Lionel had trusted them with his life and they'd let him down. They'd let
Mardean and Jamie down. They'd let everybody down.
Hutch stuck the pinwheel into the sand and rose, pulling his badge
out of his pocket. He looked down at it, reflecting the rays of the sun off its
shining surface. The sight of it sickened him. No, what it stood for sickened
him. He raised his head and looked out over the water, the waves crashing into
the beach, inexorably eating away at the shoreline. That's what this badge was
doing to him. Eating away at his humanity. He couldn't stand it any longer. He
walked toward the water and drew back to throw.
And then he heard Starsky's voice. He stopped and turned and
Starsky was walking toward him, his face grave, his hands in his pockets.
"Hey. Pollutin' the
ocean?" Starsky asked, not looking at him. "Against the
law."
"Thought you were going to the movies."
"Changed my mind." Starsky gazed out at the water, squinting
against the glare.
"What was that you were sayin’?”
“About what?”
“Somethin’ about... something being against the law?"
"Ah, pollution," Starsky said. "Definite
violation."
"Well, partner," Hutch said, turning his badge over in
his hands, "the way I see it, this old badge has polluted me just about
enough."
"Really," Starsky answered, pulling his own ID from his
pocket and taking the badge out of the leather case.
Hutch watched him, dumbfounded, knowing what was in his mind. It
was one thing for him to feel bitter and angry and ready to quit. But for
Starsky – why, that badge, being a cop, was his whole life ....
Starsky met his eyes for the first time and his were dark with
sorrow. "Mind if I join you?"
Without another word exchanged, and in perfect sync, as always,
the two men took a couple of running steps and pitched their badges into the
crashing waves.
~*~*~*~
Her father had left for work half an hour earlier, hardly
speaking, the worry lines in his forehead more pronounced than ever. Sighing,
Allison May stirred her coffee and sipped it without really tasting it as she
looked through the newspaper. She knew her father's past had come back to haunt
them, she knew he was in terrible danger, but he wouldn't tell her anything.
She'd had to guess what little she did know. What she didn't know was how she
could help him.
And then her eyes fell on a photo on page four. Two policemen,
coming out of the courthouse. And one of them was achingly familiar. She turned
the newspaper toward the window to get a better look at the photo and read the
caption beneath: "Detectives David Starsky and Kenneth Hutchinson leave
court after the McClellan hearing."
Davy, after all these years! And he was a police detective. Maybe Davy could help them, but Allison
hadn’t seen David Starsky in twenty-one years.
The slim possibility existed that this man wasn’t even the same Starsky
she knew all those years ago. Even if
it was the same person, she had no way of knowing if she could trust him. She’d have to find a way to arrange a
meeting without her old friend knowing what was happening.
~*~*~*~
After finishing breakfast, Starsky tried to convince Hutch it
would be a good idea to go to the movies in the afternoon. He saw it as free and easy, while Hutch saw
it as the sign of two men about to be broke from unemployment. After agreeing to answer an ad Hutch
discovered that sounded a little too good to be true, they’d left the small diner...
and immediately stepped into a chase between armed, fleeing suspects on a
motorcycle and a black-and-white unit.
The uniforms had to deal with the smashed car they’d left behind them
when the former detectives “helped” apprehend the suspects. Returning to the Torino, they discovered a
dirty yellow convertible double-parked behind Starsky’s car.
An attractive brunette approached them after they started trying
to push the little sports car out of the way.
A brief discussion with her, reassuring her they didn’t plan to steal
her car, led to Allison’s arranged meeting.
She had seen Starsky and he had seen her. Hutch didn’t know what to make of it when Starsky told him he was
thinking about ghosts. Something about
the young woman they’d just met was bothering Starsky and he couldn’t quite
decide what it was.
Allison followed the two men throughout the day. She was surprised that they didn’t notice
her following them, but they didn’t.
When they settled down for a while in a bar called The Pits, she thought
that was a stroke of good fortune.
Allison slipped inside after they had enough time to get a table. Her plan came together beautifully when
Hutch approached her and she wound up spending the afternoon with him and
Starsky. The most challenging part of
the day had been dodging the affections of the two men who were falling all
over themselves trying to get to know her.
None of them noticed the two men tailing Starsky and Hutch, which both
amazed and amused the two thugs.
Over the next couple of days, the three of them spent more time
together, including an evening listening to the Boston Symphony play a Brahms
concert. Looking through a photo album
in Allison’s home after the concert, Starsky realized why Allison looked so
familiar to him. He figured out that
she was really Laura Anderson, a girl he grew up with – who supposedly died in a car accident
twenty-one years in the past.
By the time Starsky guessed her true identity, Allison knew the
two men were no longer cops. She tried
to explain what had happened and that she didn’t care that they weren’t on the
force anymore. She told them she knew
she had no right to ask for their help.
“My father is in terrible trouble, David, he’s in terrible
trouble... and... I can’t help him. Maybe you and Hutch can,” she said, her
eyes pleading with them for help.
Naturally, the former cops were unable to resist. The next day, they started following her
father, having no idea where their actions would lead.
~*~*~*~
“I’m tellin’ you they don’t have a clue we’re tailing them,” Alex
said to a disbelieving Soldier. “They quit bein’ cops and suddenly they have
shit for brains.”
His cohort confirmed it.
“We’ve been on their tails all over Bay City and they ain’t seen us
once. Why don’t we just pop ‘em?”
Soldier said, “In time.
For now, we do what we’re told.
Keep on them and report what they’re doing.”
“You’re the boss.” The two
men left to pick up the trail on their charges. They found it hard to believe.
Maybe when Starsky and Hutch turned in their guns and badges they had
also turned in their edge and their caution.
~*~*~*~
The burnout and frustration they had felt before they quit the
force had robbed Starsky and Hutch of their ability to see any good in police
work. When they resigned, they both slid
into a psychological state of limbo – unable to work as cops anymore, but
floating without purpose while they looked for something else. Where once they had been cautious and aware
of their surroundings, now they failed to notice that they were being
tailed.
The two former detectives wanted to help Allison’s father. To that end, they began a quiet
investigation of the records he seemed to be selling. Following Thomas May and looking at those records revealed that
the object of the information he was illegally passing off was the names of
financially troubled FHA loan holders.
Despite a warning from two FBI agents to stay away from Thomas May, they
continued. Getting caught in a roar of
gunfire in a parking garage with Allison was their first inkling that anyone
other than the FBI was interested in their activities.
They convinced Huggy Bear to go undercover for them and approach
some of the people whose names appeared on one of the lists they had
obtained. His operation gleaned the
name of a mortgage company that had representatives canvassing the troubled
homeowners for new loans. Right after
that, things began to unravel.
First, Thomas May set Starsky and Hutch up for a fall at a local
steam room. He told them he had
information and wanted to meet them there, but the two thugs who were following
Starsky and Hutch showed up instead.
When they tried to go back to Allison’s house to speak with her father,
the FBI agents picked them up again.
Just as they returned, true to their current string of luck, the
borrowed truck they were driving was towed away before they could stop it. The events of the early morning distracted
them from their quest to find out why May had sent them into the lion’s den. By the time they were ready to get back on track,
they received a chilling phone call to go see Mr. May.
May’s death hit both men hard.
While they did their best to help Allison pull it together, both of them
were sickened by the nightmarish twists their lives were taking, and by the
thought that ineptitude or refusal to heed warnings on their part had resulted
in Thomas May’s murder. Hutch said
they had gone about working on the case “...with all the finesse of a wrecking
ball.”
Both men knew they’d stirred up the hornet’s nest Lionel Rigger’s
widow had mentioned, but they still didn’t know how serious it was going to
become. A rich, powerful man – overlord
of crime overlords – had fingered them for death. He was the man responsible for Soldier and for the other men who
had tried to kill Starsky and Hutch more than once since they became involved
with Lionel. When the overlord’s
assistant asked him if he should give Soldier the order to “strike” in the
matter of the two former police officers, the old man’s chilling reply was “To
kill. Tell him to kill.”
~*~*~*~
Marty bummed a cigarette from Alex. The two men sat smoking and drinking coffee at Soldier’s kitchen
table. They were discussing what to do
about two pesky former cops.
“I got the order to waste ‘em,” Soldier said.
Alex bristled. “We can handle that, Soldier.”
“Not so far. You morons
missed them with the car, you missed them in the parking garage, and you let
them get the drop on you in the steam room.
This time, no screw-ups. The old
man wants them gone and I’m here to make sure it happens.”
The phone rang, interrupting Marty’s pending protest. “Yeah?” Soldier answered. He paused and listened for a few
moments. “Is he in the courthouse
today? On my way.” He hung up and said,
“I’m going down to take care of McClellan.
When that’s done, we’ll finish the rest of our business.”
“What do we do?” Marty asked.
Soldier issued instructions while he took off his red t-shirt,
stuffing it into a duffle bag, and replacing it with a button up shirt, tie, and
blazer. “While I’m down at the courthouse, you get over to Hutchinson’s place
and grab Allison May. She’s staying
there. Take her to the old amusement
park, you know where. Some of the guys
will meet you and I’ll be along after the judge is toast. You take her there, then split.”
“Why can’t we stay and finish it?” Alex hissed.
“Because the old man said he wants you on another assignment. Those two troublemakers will be dead, and
I’m gonna handle it. You just do like
you’re told.”
The two men nodded in agreement.
That should be an easy task.
Alex had been frustrated by this entire assignment. First, they were told to run Starsky and
Hutch down with their car, then they were told to back off again. Next, they were given the order to shoot
them, but they missed and they were given a red light again. He and his partner were both glad the old
man had decided to finish matters.
Alex said, “So, we use the girl for bait. You gonna finish her, too?”
“No witnesses. After
Starsky and Hutchinson are dead, we kill the girl. Killing Hutchinson is going to be a pleasure. I wanted to pop him when I blasted his tacky
car and got to Rigger, but the old man said not to yet. The other men can take Starsky, but the
blond is mine. Leave them a note at Hutchinson’s. ‘If you want to see the girl alive again...’ and the address. You
got all of that?”
“Yeah, we got it. We ain’t
really morons, you know,” Marty replied in anger.
“I suggest you zip it and prove you’re not by doin’ your job. The old man don’t take kindly to
mistakes. You could ask Judge McClellan
about that, but then again, he’ll be dead within half an hour.”
Alex and Marty gulped, looking at each other for reassurance that
they could do the job. They watched
Soldier load his gun and secure the silencer to the end of it. He slipped it into his jacket pocket. The two men followed him out and they
separated to complete their missions.
~*~*~*~
Incredibly, the pieces of what happened to Lionel and to Allison’s
father were beginning to fit together in a way that made it appear that the two
deaths were linked. The common
denominator was federal judge Ray McClellan.
Just when the ex-cops thought they had enough to nail the judge, the man
was shot to death in the men’s washroom at the courthouse.
As if the judge’s assassination hadn’t been a big enough blow,
Soldier and his cohorts had kidnapped Allison.
Starsky and Hutch went to the amusement park to rescue her, knowing the
object of the game was probably to kill all three of them.
The entire ordeal was over in minutes. Starsky’s quick thinking gave Hutch a chance to dive for their
guns. Hutch had no time to think about
what had happened until the echoes of their gunfire died. Seeing Starsky and Allison crash through a
plate glass window did nothing for his heart rate. In truth, despite the danger, he was glad he’d had something to
concentrate on right after the sound of breaking glass, keeping him from
dwelling on the possibility that his partner and their friend may have been
sliced to ribbons.
When it was all over, Hutch walked back toward his partner,
lightly touching him in relief and gratitude that he was unharmed. He looked Allison over and saw that she was
terrified, but also unhurt. Then he
quietly said, “We kept our promise, Mardean.
Least your husband can rest a little easier.”
Hutch had gotten Soldier.
He and Starsky were both glad they were able to keep their promise to
Mardean, but sorry they had to kill to defend themselves. Bringing Soldier and his goons to justice would
have given them the opportunity to get the answers to a lot of questions. Two private citizens had just thwarted a
kidnapping and escaped certain death – but at the cost of four lives. They had some explaining to do. The paperwork involved in any shooting when
they were cops was bad enough. Now that
they were off the force, things were more complicated.
A hearing was held on the matter and the shooting was ruled
justified. After the hearing, Starsky,
Hutch, and Deputy District Attorney Clayburn were stopped on the courthouse
steps by a crowd of reporters. They had
no idea who would see the coverage or that it would run outside of Bay
City. The old man was watching and he
was not amused. The two men were
thinking of rejoining the police force, and Clayburn was standing there glowing
about it – knowing he was shining on the reporters, his life of crime still
carefully concealed.
The results of their actions pleased Captain Dobey. They had shaken up a lot of people. He wanted them to rejoin the force right
away, but they thought it might be easier to do their remaining “nosing around”
without a badge. Starsky said that they
wanted to figure out who was “powerful enough to corrupt a federal judge.”
The pieces were beginning to come together. Starsky and Hutch believed that the people
responsible for Judge McClellan’s murder had to have a connection in the DA’s
office. Their hunch was that it might
be Clayburn. He was the one who knew
all of the details about the McClellan case and it was right after they went to
him with more evidence that the judge was killed. Two days of research had revealed some interesting things. The two men had attended the same university
and had been close friends for at least the past ten years. Not only did they belong to the same
exclusive gentlemen’s club, Clayburn was the head of the committee to elect Ray
McClellan as a judge. That they were
closely tied was indisputable. After
getting this valuable information from Huggy at a movie theater, Starsky’s offhand
remark about the time as the movie started gave Hutch a brilliant idea. They confirmed his theory with Deputy
Sheriff Fred Oates and took the information to Captain Dobey.
“Clayburn?” Captain Dobey exclaimed.
“Your friend and ours,” Starsky replied.
“Whoever it was he talked to at 1:45, Captain, it was not Deputy
Sheriff Fred Oates,” Hutch continued.
Starsky added, “I’ll tell you who it was, it was the man in
charge, it was Mr. Big. All he had to
hear from the DA was that we had enough information to bury McClellan. Once he heard that, it only took him
twenty-five minutes to shut McClellan’s mouth, and....”
Hutch interjected, “Twenty-five minutes... report, decision,
action, touchdown. That’s a hell of a team, Captain.”
“And Clayburn called the plays,” Dobey said.
Starsky and Hutch headed for the DA’s office to see if they could
head Clayburn off before he could blow town.
They were worried that he’d heard through the grapevine that they were
onto him, and they were right. He was
on his way to the airport for a flight to Brazil. He was unaware as he rushed to the airport that the old man had
already arranged for him to be killed. Although Soldier had been eliminated,
another operative, Karen, was sent to make sure that the loose end named
Clayburn never made it out of California alive. The old man didn’t like loose ends.
Karen killed Deputy DA Clayburn in the airport terminal and
Starsky and Hutch arrested her. She
wasn’t in custody long. She was bailed
out and found dead in her apartment two days later, from a single gunshot wound
to the head. Execution style.
The mayor’s office was pleased with the way Starsky and Hutch had
handled the McClellan case. Despite
their status as private citizens, they had cracked a powerful organization. The corruption they uncovered all the way
from a federal judge through the FBI and the District Attorney’s office made it
a high profile case. Starsky and Hutch
were invited back on the force and publicly presented with their shields by the
mayor.
Later that evening, sitting with Allison at The Pits over a
celebratory dinner, they discussed everything that had happened to them. “What
are you going to do now, Allison?” Hutch asked.
“I think I’m going to Florida for a while. I want to visit my aunt and the FBI told me
that’s where she lives. Now that my dad
is gone and I don’t need to hide anymore, I want her to know I’m alive.”
“We’ll be sorry to see you go,” Starsky said.
Allison smiled and put a hand on each of their arms. “I know. I’ll miss you guys, too. I might come back someday.”
Huggy sat down at the table with them and said, “So how does it
feel to emerge victorious or whatever the mayor said?”
“Yeah,” Allison said.
“What did you mean back outside the mayor’s office, David? You acted like you weren’t sure you’d won.”
The two newly reinstated detectives looked at each other. They held a brief, non-verbal conversation
and Starsky tipped his head at Hutch, cueing him to explain.
“We’re kind of glad you’re going to get away from here for a
while, Allison. Don’t get me wrong, but
maybe it’s for the best. We managed to
topple some heavyweights this time and Starsk and I think it may not really be
over. Some dangerous people may still
be out there and if they are, we may be in their crosshairs.”
Huggy looked at them incredulously. “You’re joking.”
“I wish we were, Hug,” Starsky replied. “We’re going to be working
on other cases, but we’re not really done with this one. I have a feeling there’s still some loose ends
here and we don’t want Allison to be one of them.”
Allison didn’t like the sound of that. “Are you two really in any danger?”
“Always,” Hutch replied.
“But we’re careful. We’ll keep
an eye on the storm clouds.”
~*~*~*~
James Marshall Gunther sat alone at the desk, going through the
files and making notations as he did so. He was not a happy man. In just a few
months, the work of years had been undone, and all of it had been undone by the
same two police officers.
A couple of years previously, his jewel smuggling organization had
been brought down thanks to Vanessa Hutchinson's unspeakable idiocy in going to
her ex-husband to hide a gem she wanted, foolishly, to keep for herself. That
had annoyed him, but if that had been the end of the detectives' interference
in his activities, he might have been willing to overlook it.
But now his federal judge and the assistant D.A. had both fallen
due to these detectives. True, he had given the orders to eliminate them both.
But the reason for the judge's elimination had been that the two officers were
too close to proving that the judge was, well, less than ethical. And that
might eventually have led to their finding a connection with Gunther
Industries. Clayburn was killed for
similar reasons, along with being cocky and careless. James Marshall Gunther liked cocky and careless as much as he
liked loose ends.
Those same officers had done irreparable damage to his scheme to
mine the rich fields of FHA homeowners who were behind on payments. The operation
couldn't be salvaged, though so far their investigation had not reached him
personally. He'd seen to that, anyway. There was no way it could be connected
to him. But just to be safe ... He lifted his telephone receiver.
"Bates, I need you."
Bates bustled in a few minutes later, wearing his inevitable
pin-striped, three piece suit and carrying his briefcase. "What can I do
for you, sir?"
"Some of our operatives must be eliminated," Gunther
said without explaining his reasoning. Bates did not need to know his reasons.
Gunther pushed a list of names across the desk to Bates. "See to it."
Bates, who would never learn when to keep his mouth shut, looked
down at the list. "All of these?" he said, making no effort to hide
his dismay. "But these are some of our key men."
Gunther simply stared at him and Bates reddened slightly.
"Yes, sir. I'll see to it."
"So that none of them are warned by the deaths of the
others," Gunther said, "see to it that they're all eliminated on the
same day. The same time, if possible."
Bates, in the act of turning away to begin arranging the
operatives' deaths, stopped and turned back. "Sir, that will require
–" He looked at the list again. "– six separate soldiers."
"I'm perfectly aware of that, Mr. Bates," Gunther said.
"Are you trying to tell me we don't possess six assassins among our
far-flung network?" He raised his eyebrows. Sometimes Bates' slow mental
processes irritated him enough to find an assassin to take care of HIM.
"Of course we do, sir," Bates said. "Actually, last
time I counted, we had ten."
Gunther suppressed a sigh. "Keep Alex and Marty available. I
have other work for them to do."
Bates scribbled something on his slip of paper and left the room.
Gunther looked back down at the files in front of him. Those two police officers weren't going to
bother him much longer. He picked up his pen and underlined their names in the
file. David Starsky and Kenneth Hutchinson. It was long past time for them to put
their affairs in order. He smiled a little. Too bad someone couldn't warn them
about that...
~*~*~*~
After Allison left, Starsky and Hutch returned to police work and
they tried to put the circumstances that led to Lionel’s death behind
them. Knowing that they brought down
the people responsible helped, but something about the case and all of its
intricacies wore on them both. Though
they worked their cases as hard as they did before they quit and rejoined the
force, something wasn’t clicking. About
two months after their return, the two detectives worked a case involving
serial murders of women working at a local dance hall. They were assigned to work with Kira, a
fellow undercover officer.
Both Starsky and Hutch were attracted to Kira and they both became
involved with her. The case was
stressful enough, without the added strain of competition and betrayal brought
into play with the female officer.
Going into what would turn out to be their last night on the case, the
two men were so angry at each other, they barely spoke unless the communication
involved the case. That early May
night, when the killer pulled the pin out of a hand grenade in the middle of
the dance hall, Starsky and Hutch went into motion as a team – without the
necessity of giving their movements any thought. Fortunately, the resulting explosion only caused property damage
and some minor injuries. As they worked
to wrap up the scene, the two men kept stealing glances at each other, trying
to make sure that the other one was really uninjured.
Hauling their suspect in and filing the paperwork took time. The detectives hadn’t driven together that
day and when Hutch disappeared for a while to another part of the station, he
returned to find that Starsky had finished typing their report and left it in
the middle of Hutch’s desk. Hutch knew
he was gone for the night and he hung his head a little and sighed. They needed to talk.
The next day, they had the chance. Hutch had risen early and wandered aimlessly around his apartment
for half an hour. He was furious with
himself for his part in the partnership’s problems. Hutch knew his actions with Kira were a mistake and he hoped he
could make it up to Starsky. He decided
that he’d had enough of the blue funk he’d wandered around in for the past
couple of weeks. That funk was almost
an extension of his black mood before the days of Lionel, Soldier, and Allison,
and he kicked himself for being sullen and hard to please. If he was going to apologize to Starsky, he
was going to mean that things would change.
Nothing was more important to him than his best friend. Deciding that he’d start fresh that day, he
changed into sweats and went for a run for the first time in months. His time was terrible, but it felt
fantastic. He shook off the cloud
around him and was lighter in his heart when he turned the corner to his street
and saw the Torino parked there.
Starsky had also risen early.
He was worried about what Hutch was thinking. Leaving the station the previous evening without saying goodnight
to his partner after everything that had happened was weighing heavily on
him. He drove to Hutch’s and let
himself in when there was no answer.
Hutch had been a little closer to the blast, and even though he seemed
fine, anything could happen. Finding
the apartment empty with Hutch’s car on the street was unusual. Starsky knew his partner had all but given
up running and his regular morning activities.
Starsky looked around the apartment and decided that maybe Hutch
had just gone down to the corner market.
He went in and made a pot of coffee, intending to have a long talk with
his friend before they went to the station.
Hearing Hutch’s footsteps coming up the stairs a few minutes later made
his heart beat a little faster. Starsky
wanted to work out their differences and he was nervous about how the
discussion would go.
Hutch stopped just inside the door and stared at Starsky. “You speaking to me, partner?” he asked.
Starsky answered, “Yeah.
Grab a shower. I put up some
coffee. It’ll be done by the time you get
out. Then we’ll talk.”
Hutch nodded his agreement and headed for the bathroom. He was glad Starsky was there and he didn’t
seem as angry as he had been. Hutch’s
heart was also beating a little faster, wondering what his friend would have to
say.
After he showered and got ready for work, Hutch joined Starsky at
the kitchen table. His partner had made
some toast and poured the coffee. Hutch
sat down and took a deep breath.
“Starsk,” he said, “I’m sorry. I
don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know
how to explain myself.”
“I just have one question, Hutch,” Starsky said softly. “Why?”
They sat together and hashed out what had happened between them
and Kira. She was suddenly of little
importance. Both of them wanted to mend
fences and they both had things they wanted to say to explain their
behavior. As they worked through their
thoughts and feelings, they warmed up to each other again. Forgiveness was the first thing on both of
their minds, both of them asking for it, both of them offering it. When they had to leave or be late for duty,
they decided to continue their talk after work. In addition to that plan, the thing they most agreed on was that
they needed to get back at Kira and put her behind them. They both wanted her to know they were wise
to her game. The opportunity to do that
presented itself sooner than they thought it would.
That day, they both received word that they were supposed to meet
Kira at Huggy’s bar. They decided to
play a trick on her. They would show up
dressed alike, and pretend not to know why they were each there. To add to the effect, they agreed they
wouldn’t let Huggy in on their secret.
That night, after Kira refused them both and they walked away from her
together, they went to Starsky’s place to unwind and finish their morning
conversation.
They had the next day off, so they decided it would be best if
Hutch crashed at Starsky’s and they got a little trashed. They sat on the living room floor deep in
conversation as they put away their second pitcher of margaritas.
“I’ve decided to get back to my old routine, Starsk,” Hutch said
as he held out his glass for more of the frozen concoction. “Too bad that means you have to give me back
my blender.” He chuckled at that last
bit, pulling his glass back and licking off the little bit of margarita Starsky
had sloshed over onto his hand.
“I’m sure you don’t mean the blender that provided this delicious
pitcher of adult slushies. No way,
Blondie. You gave me this thing when you
kicked your black strap roof tar and butterfly knees morning drinks. Get a new one.”
He lifted his own glass in a toasting gesture, squelching Hutch’s
protest. “To us, partner. Together again and ridin’ herd on our
beat. Let the criminals beware.”
“Here, here,” Hutch agreed, clinking his glass against
Starsky’s.
Starsky started to giggle and said, “Keep movin’, movin’, movin’…
though they’re disapprovin’, keep those doggies movin’, Rawhide!”
Hutch surprised Starsky by interrupting with, “Don’t try to
understand ‘em, just rope, throw, and brand ‘em… soon we’ll be livin’ high and
wide.…”
“Hey! You watched
Rawhide?”
“Yup,” Hutch said in his best cowboy drawl. That resulted in another fit of giggles on both their parts.