XV

The jail was never quiet. Even in the middle of the night there were noises—the steady, rubber-soled pacing of the guards and the low hum of their idle conversation. The elusive echoes of rather sleepy vigilance. The prisoners made their own sounds. A symphony of snores and adenoidal breathing and bad dream sounds. There were other, more illicit noises—the slap of card against card in two-handed poker games, quiet battles between cellmates, quiet confrontations of another sort that were also battles in their own way, battles against the terrible loneliness.

Hutch heard it all. He didn't sleep well and before long he knew what was happening up and down the cellblock and could even predict what would happen next just from the sounds he heard. He knew when the guard named Laker was coming, because the fat man made a different noise as he walked. Another guard made his way to the end of the block every night between one and two and paused there long enough to emit a gaseous belch. Garcia, in the bunk below Hutch, dreamed every night of his wife and woke up to fulfill the imagery in solitary labor. Hutch simply learned not to listen.

He spent the days learning, too. Learning not to feel. Not to think.

Not even to hope. He simply survived.

Three days before his trial was scheduled to begin, Hutch had a summons to go to the visitor's room. He walked in and saw Dobey sitting in one of the cubicles. The captain looked dismayed as Hutch sat down opposite him. Hutch knew he looked like hell. He'd lost weight and his hair was longer. The planes of his face were angular and deeply shadowed. Sometimes he could hardly recognize himself in the shaving mirror.

"How are you, Hutch?" Dobey said into the phone.

"I'm okay." Hutch tapped one hand against the table. "Kramer says we're ready for the trial."

"Yes, I've been keeping in touch with him. Your father called me, too. He was a little disappointed that you'd asked him not to come for the trial, but he understood."

"Good. Cap'n, I gotta find a way to get out of here."

"You will, Hutch. Soon."

"Nobody else can do it," Hutch went on, as if he hadn't heard Dobey at all. "They've been screwing it up all this time. So it's up to me."

"What is?"

Hutch was surprised. "To find Starsky, of course. What else?"

Dobey sighed. "You should be worrying about yourself right now."

"I am. I'm worried about the fact that my partner is missing."

"We'll find Starsky."

"I will. That's why I have to get out of here." He glanced around and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I've been thinking lately . . . maybe I should try getting out on my own. Just . . . leave. It happens. A guy escaped just last week."

"Don't even think about that," Dobey said quickly. "That's damned stupid."

"If I could get to one of the guards, maybe bribe him . . . it might be done."

"Hutchinson," Dobey said harshly, "stop it. Stop it right now! Have you lost your mind?"

Hutch looked at him. "What?"

"Do you hear what you're saying? Are you listening?"

"I . . ." Hutch shrugged.

"You just stop thinking about escaping. It can't be done."

Hutch sighed. "You don't understand," was all he said. They were quiet for a moment. Hutch looked around the room vaguely. "You know," he said finally, "I've been doing a lot of reading."

"Have you?"

"I was reading this book the other day and it was talking about amnesia. I had an idea that maybe he got hit on the head in the accident. Maybe he has amnesia."

"Might be."

Seemingly encouraged by Dobey's unenthusiastic agreement, Hutch leaned forward and spoke with increased intensity. "Look, what I want to do is, check all the hospitals in the San Manuel area. Farther than that even, 'cause who knows how far he might have gone? Check them out and see if they have any patients with amnesia. Let me flash Starsk's picture around and maybe I can come up with something."

He sounded, Dobey thought, like a cop for the first time in a long time. Like a cop on the trail of a hot tip. It was Hutch as he had been. Dobey felt like smashing something in a sudden swell of anger against the fates. He felt like crying. "Hutch," he said softly. "Hutch . . . ."

"You can see why I have to get out of here, can't you?"

"Detective Hutchinson, you cannot get out until after the trial. You're here. I'll check the hospitals again. We checked once, but I'll do it again. We are trying to find Starsky."

"But . . . ." After another moment, Hutch nodded slowly. "Okay," he said in a half-whisper. "You check it out. Please." He switched the phone to his other ear. "I was reading another book. About insanity. I wonder if I'm going crazy."

Dobey shook his head.

"I can't sleep. Did you ever lie awake all night listening to the water pipes leak? They get louder every night. Or I listen to the guards." Hutch switched the phone again. "My cellmate jacks off every night. He thinks I don't know. Or maybe he doesn't care."

"All this shouldn't come as a surprise to you, Hutch. You've been a cop long enough."

Hutch didn't seem to hear. "I can hardly eat the food. He would love it, of course." He paused. "The two guys in the next cell screw each other twice a week. They take turns." Another pause. "What about the bay?" he said suddenly, irrelevantly.

"What?"

"Dragging the bay. Did anybody think of dragging the bay? In case he maybe walked that way, got dizzy, and fell in."

"Hutch, please."

Abruptly Hutch got to his feet. "I better go. You'll check out all those things I mentioned?"

"Yes." Dobey watched him leave the room. He sat there for a long time after Hutch was gone.

**

McPherson came the next day. Hutch was taken to a special room, one without the barriers of the visitor's room. He walked in and sat down opposite the psychologist.

"Dobey sent you," he said flatly.

"He suggested I come. Do you mind?"

Hutch shrugged.

"You look terrible."

"Yeah. Well."

"Anything you'd like to talk about?"

"No. Dobey over-reacted. Just because I'm worried about finding my partner he thinks I'm over the edge."

McPherson took his pipe from his pocket and began the ritual of lighting it. "Okay," he said cheerfully. "I had a thought, though, if you'd like to hear it."

"What?"

"What would you say about being hypnotized?"

Hutch blinked. "What for?"

"If we could take you back to the night of the murder, you might remember something."

"I already told them everything. I was unconscious."

McPherson puffed frantically. "Maybe. But there's a chance you might have had some degree of awareness that, if we could find it, might give a clue as to what happened." He had finally succeeded in getting the pipe lit and he gave a small sigh of satisfaction. "Of course, whatever we find out would be totally confidential. It couldn't be brought up in court."

Hutch thought about it. "You think it might help, really?"

McPherson shrugged. "I think it might be worth a try, Ken."

"All right. When?"

"Might as well be right now." He set the pipe aside and took a small Lucite ball on a gold chain from his pocket. "There's absolutely nothing mystical about my use of this pendulum. It's merely a device for gaining information from the subconscious mind." He held the chain between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, with his elbow resting on his knee, so that the ball dangled freely. "All right, Ken, I want you to watch the pendulum carefully as you listen to my voice."

Hutch leaned forward a little in the chair, trying to concentrate, not really aware of what words McPherson was saying, but very conscious of the low, soothing tone he was using. "You can't lift your arms, can you, Ken? They're too heavy. You try, but they won't move."

Hutch tried. "They won't move," he repeated.

"Very good. Now, though, if you want, you will be able to move them. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Okay. We're going to talk about the night of the accident. You remember the accident, don't you?"

"Yes."

"You remember hitting the barricade? Tell me what's happening, Ken."

"There aren't any brakes . . . Starsk, no brakes . . . everybody duck and hold on tight . . . oh, god—" His arms flew up as if to protect his head and face. He sat very still.

"Ken, can you hear me?"

"Yes," Hutch whispered.

"What's happening?"

"I . . . hurt . . . can't move . . . everything is all . . . dark."

"Can you hear anything at all?"

"No . . . wait . . . somebody moving . . . I hear . . . a voice."

"What do you hear, Ken?"

" . . . buddy? . . . oh shit man."

"Whose voice is it?"

"Starsky."

"Is he saying anything else?"

"Okay, babe . . . I'll get help—" Hutch's voice changed a little, taking on a vaguely nasal, New York tone. "Take it easy, buddy . . . hang in there. Oh, please, hold on. I'll be right back."

"Anything else?"

"No . . . touching." Hutch's hand lifted and lightly caressed his own cheek. "He's touching my face . . . and holding my hand . . . too tightly . . . hurts."

McPherson waited for a moment. "Ken?"

"No more . . . he's gone . . . I'm waiting for him to come back."

"What's happening now?"

"Somebody's coming . . . Starsk? Oh god, Starsk, I'm glad . . . no. No, it's not Starsky . . . somebody else . . . voices . . . somebody is taking my gun . . . no . . ."

His voice changed again, getting higher in pitch. "I'll show you . . . rich bitch . . . it's mine . . . richbitchrichbitch . . . ." Hutch shuddered. "Shot . . . loud . . . ." He stopped, looking bewildered. "That's all . . . everything's gone now . . . all dark." He slouched back against the chair.

"Okay, Ken, relax. I'm going to count to three and then you'll wake up. You'll feel rested and he able to remember everything you just said. One, two, three."

Hutch shook his head vaguely. "Hey." He rubbed a hand across his face. "He never came back."

"Somebody came, though. Somebody came and shot Kimberly Wright."

"Something happened to Starsk and I have to know what it was."

McPherson picked up the cold pipe and toyed with it absently. "Well, at least we know he didn't just run out."

"I already knew that."

They were quiet for a time. "Harold told me you were talking about trying to escape, Ken. You know that's not very smart, right?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess. You think maybe whoever killed . . . her, the broad . . ."

"Kimberly Wright."

"Yeah. Her. You think maybe the same person followed Starsky and killed him, too?"

"I don't know, Ken. It's possible."

Hutch got to his feet. "I better go."

"What's your hurry?"

"I got some thinking to do." He glanced around the room vaguely. "There's a lot to do." He took a step toward the door, then stopped. "The next time you talk to Dobey, ask him about the dragging operation in the bay, will you?"

"Okay."

Hutch stepped back out into the hall where a guard waited to escort him back to his cell.

**

They caught up with him as he left the library. Usually the guard walked back to the block with him, but there was some kind of a problem in the M-wing and the guard answered a summons. Hutch didn't feel like waiting for him to come back. He was about halfway back to his cell, carrying three more books, when the three men stepped from the shadows of the building. He nodded and tried to step past them, but they closed ranks around him. "Shove off," he said quietly.

"Is that friendly, Hutchinson?" one said. Dirty blond hair hung to his shoulders. "We only want to talk."

"About what?" Hutch replied, edging away slightly, until his way was blocked by a skinny black man.

"Well, it's like this," Dirty Blond said. "We got a friend name of Dago. You know Dago?"

Hutch shook his head, shifting the books carefully.

"Well, Dago knows you. He seen you come in that first day and he's been keeping an eye on you ever since."

"Why?" Wondering what would happen if he just dropped the books and ran, Hutch glanced around the courtyard. Where the hell was the guard?

"Why? 'Cause he likes you, is all. That very first day he liked you. Dago, he says to me, I like his looks. He's a mighty pretty cop. We don't get a whole lot of pretty cops in here. So Dago sorta took a fancy to you." The man chuckled. "If you get my drift."

"I get it." Hutch took a firm step and found his way blocked. "Tell your friend Dago to go screw himself."

"Dago wants you. And he don't take no for an answer."

After a moment Hutch took another step and this time they let him pass.

He walked away slowly, not looking back. When he reached his cell, he slammed the door closed.

**

The guard escorted him to the shower room and waited in the entrance way. Hutch soaped quickly and rinsed, watching the soapy water spin down the drain. He stepped out of the stall and wrapped the towel around his waist. It was then that he heard the noise from just beyond the door. A noise like a heavy body hitting the floor. Fat Laker was the guard waiting for him.

"Laker?" Hutch said, "is something—" He broke off as a dirty blond and the skinny black man came into the room, taking up positions on either side of the door.

A third man came in. "My name is Dago," he said softly, his eyes moving slowly over Hutch.

Hutch forced himself to turn and walk over to the mirror. He picked up the razor and began to shave. "I've got no time to talk now."

Dago, a husky, good-looking young man with slightly pockmarked skin, smiled. "That's okay. I ain't much for talking anyway." He moved closer. "I just want to be your friend."

Hutch finished shaving and carefully rinsed the razor. His clothes were hanging on a hook by the door. He dried his hands and took a step in that direction. "I have all the friends I need."

"That's not what I hear. I hear you got no friends at all." Dago took another step toward him. "Maybe you been saving yourself for the right guy?"

Illo bare chested Hutch in shower room

Hutch moved toward his clothes. The black man reached for them, rolled them into a ball, and tossed it into the hall.

"Hey," Hutch protested, "those are clean, man." He ducked a little, then straightened, swinging both arms into the blond's chest. A homemade knife appeared in the black's hand. Hutch backed away, groping behind him for the razor.

"Hutchinson," Dago chided, "take it easy. Who knows? You might even enjoy it." He gave a sudden lunge and ripped the towel away from Hutch's body.

Thought fled. Hutch charged-forward, but the other two grabbed him and held on. He struggled uselessly. They pushed his face down hard against the sink and he felt a rush of hot blood from his nose. He gagged. They held him bent over the sink.

The sound of Dago unsnapping his trousers echoed like an explosion in Hutch's ears.

"Nononono," he whispered, swallowing a mouthful of blood and bile. "Ohchristnoplease," he said, not even knowing that he was speaking. "Nochristpleasestarskhelpmepleasestarsk." He felt Dago's hands on his shoulders, sliding down his spine, touching his ass. "No . . ."

He kicked. This could not happen. Must not happen. He would die first. Let them kill him. He almost giggled. Fate worse than death. Rape was nothing new. He could look at it objectively. How many women had he interviewed after they'd been raped? And a few men. But now, maybe for the first time, it was real.

"Ohchrist . . . don't touch me . . . oh jesus . . . ohstarskplease . . . don't let this happen to me . . . ohbabepleasehelpme." His whispered words crashed against the sink. As Dago's fingers moved over him, Hutch gave a gurgling roar.

Dago's hands tightened on his ass. "Okay, pretty boy. I like it rough, too. I like it when you fight." He moved closer, pressing his body against Hutch.

"Please . . . no . . . I'll kill you." Above the blood roaring in his ears, Hutch could hear Dago laughing.

The door crashed open. Fat Laker and another guard stood there, two guns leveled at Dago.

"Stop," Laker said quietly. "Never learn, do you, Dago?"

Abruptly, Hutch was free. He slumped against the sink, the taste of blood mingling with bitter bile and the saltiness of unshed tears. My face will look like hell in court tomorrow, he thought distantly.

Someone handed him his clothes and he started to dress. Dressing was a normal, rational thing to do. When he was finished, the guard took him by the arm and led him toward the infirmary. He kept saying that he was all right. It was all very calm and efficient. Nobody knew that he was screaming inside.

**

XVI

Although with the beard, dark glasses, and phony passport he felt fairly safe, Starsky didn't really relax until he was through customs and walking out into the Los Angeles evening. He almost felt like dropping to his knees and kissing the asphalt parking lot, but he didn't. Instead, he caught a taxi and gave the driver Dobey's address. He didn't know for sure why he'd picked Dobey's house as a destination. Maybe it was as simple as one place being the same as another. After all, where else was there? Not his apartment or Hutch's, that was for sure. Huggy's maybe. But the Pits was a popular place, not only with Hutch and him, but with a lot of other cops, too. Dobey was a cop, of course, but Dobey was their captain. He wouldn't betray Starsky.

The house was dark when he arrived. He pried open the back door to the garage and went inside, sitting on a work bench in the corner. Leaning back, he lit a cigarette and watched its tiny orange glow in the blackness. Jet lag was catching up with him. He fell asleep sitting there.

The dream came back, the one where he saw Hutch at the end of the long corridor. But this time Hutch wasn't saying anything. He was only standing there, looking at Starsky and there were tears in his eyes. Starsky wanted so much to go to him. Wanted to take Hutch into his arms and hold him tight and tell him that he loved him. Hutch knew it, of course, but he wanted to tell him anyway. Wanted to hold on tight and never let him go. But in the dream, Hutch just sort of faded away.

Starsky woke with a jerk when the cigarette burned his fingers. "Damn," he said into the empty garage.

A few minutes later the front door of the garage creaked electrically up and a car pulled in. Starsky crouched in the darkness until the headlights went off and he heard the car door open. Then he stepped from the shadows.

"Captain?" he said in a hoarse whisper.

Dobey froze. "Who's there?" he said, one hand reaching toward his gun.

Starsky stepped closer. "It's me."

Dobey opened the car door wider, sending a shaft of light through the darkness. He stared for a full minute. "Starsky? My God. Dave."

"Yeah."

Dobey shook his head. "My God," he said again. "Where have you—wait, let's go inside before we talk." He led the way to the side entrance of the house. "Edith and the kids are visiting her sister," he explained rather vaguely as he unlocked the door. They stepped into the kitchen and Dobey waved Starsky to a chair. He didn't speak until he had poured two shots of bourbon and joined him at the table.

"Dave," he said again. "We thought . . . ."

Starsky took a gulp of the liquor.

"Cap'n," he said, "is he dead?"

There was no need for Dobey to ask who "he" was, of course. Still, a somewhat bewildered look crossed his face. "Dead?"

"Is Hutch dead?"

"No."

There was a long pause. Starsky took another drink.

"Hutch isn't dead?" he said in a whisper.

"He's alive. We thought . . . we thought you were dead."

Starsky lowered his head onto his arms and cried. Dobey sat and waited, sipping the bourbon.

In a few minutes Starsky raised his head again. He took a paper napkin from the holder on the table and blew his nose loudly. "Where is he? I have to see him."

Dobey reached over and poured Starsky more bourbon. "You don't have any idea what's been going on here, do you?"

Starsky shook his head. "Hell, I've been halfway around the world." He brushed it off. "Hutch?"

"He's in jail. Hutch goes on trial tomorrow for the murder of Kimberly Wright." Dobey watched the disbelief fill Starsky's face and the black man began at the beginning, telling him everything that had happened since Hutch woke up in the wrecked car. Including the fact that there was a warrant out on Starsky himself.

Starsky slumped on his spine in the chair, drinking, smoking, listening, his face revealing nothing. 0nly the way the fingers of his right hand gripped the edge of the table showed the tension he was feeling. When Dobey finally finished, the cheerful red-and-yellow kitchen was quiet for a few minutes.

Dobey got to his feet. "Why don't I make us some food?" he suggested. "A bacon and egg sandwich sound okay?"

"Whatever," Starsky said absently. He stood and began to pace the room as Dobey busied himself with a frying pan and food. "You have any idea who's putting the frame on Hutch?"

"No. Kramer and I have explored every angle we could think of and all we have to show for it is a big zero," Dobey replied, carefully arranging bacon strips in the pan.

"I'll find out." It was an oath the way he said it.

"Starsky, where the hell have you been? The San Manuel cops think you ran out."

"I was . . . kidnapped. Took a boat trip—" He lit another of the cheap Hong Kong cigarettes. "What does Hutch think?"

Dobey gave a forced laugh, needing suddenly to try to lessen the almost unbearable tension in the room. "Your partner is full of theories. Everything from maybe you got amnesia to maybe you fell in the bay. I think he wanted us to drain the whole damned harbor." He knew that his attempt to lighten the mood had fallen flat.

Starsky scratched at the beard. "Shit." A sudden thought struck him; it was a thought that hurt. "Hutch doesn't think I ran out, does he?"

"That never once entered his mind," Dobey said firmly. He turned the bacon. "What are you going to do?"

"Whatever I have to."

"You should turn yourself in." The words were said without emotion.

"Oh, yeah? Why, so they can maybe give Hutch and me adjoining cells?" He stopped his restless pacing and stared at Dobey. "You gonna turn me in?"

"I had to say that, Dave."

"I know." Starsky sighed. "I know this puts you in the middle, Cap'n. You want I should take off and we both pretend I was never here?"

"Don't talk like an idiot."

"First of all," Starsky said after a moment, "I have to see him."

"You plan on just walking into the Diablo Correctional Facility?"

"Not me. Jerome Lasko. His I.D. got me into the country, it should get me into some shitty county jail."

Four eggs slithered into the pan. Grease splattered and popped. "You'll be taking a chance."

Starsky shrugged and sat down again. They were both quiet as Dobey made toast, piled the eggs and bacon on top, and poured more bourbon. As they ate, Dobey questioned Starsky about what had happened to him. Despite their best efforts, there seemed no way they could tie in his kidnapping with the murder of Kimberly Wright. The two incidents were unrelated. Just as they finished, the phone rang. Starsky reached for the receiver and handed it to Dobey.

"Yes? Oh, Sam, there's somethlng—what?" Dobey glanced over at Starsky, who was lost in contemplation of his drink. "What happened? When? Was he hurt bad?"

Starsky straightened slowly, his deep blue eyes suddenly sharp. "What happened?" he said.

Dobey waved him quiet. "What about the trial? Okay. Hey, Sam—since this happened, you think they'd let a visitor in? Okay, thanks for calling. See you tomorrow." He hung up slowly, not looking at Starsky.

"What happened to him?"

"A couple of punks jumped him in the shower room. Beat him up a little." Dobey cleared his throat, wondering just how far he could stretch Starsky's endurance. "Sam says . . . they were trying to . . . rape him."

Beneath the beard, Starsky's tanned face went deathly white. "Did . . . ."

Dobey reached out and gripped his arm.

"No, Dave," he said, "the guards got to him in time. But he got pretty bruised up. Sam said he thought about asking for a delay in the trial, but Hutch refused."

Starsky got up and moved around the room, barely reining in the fury he was feeling. "I gotta see him."

"Sam said he thought they'd let a visitor in."

"How fast can we get there?"

Dobey was already dialing. "I went up on a charter flight before. Let's see if we can get it again."

Starsky only nodded. He stood in the middle of the room, massaging the back of his neck wearily.

Less than three hours later Starsky was waved through the door of the visitor's room at Diablo. It was very late and the jail seemed to be asleep. The room was lit by only two dim lights. He sat down in the first cubicle and waited.

Another door opened and a tall, skinny man with shaggy blond hair came in. His face was bruised and his nose looked swollen. He didn't even bother to look up as he crossed the room and sat down. It was as if he had absolutely no interest in who his visitor might be.

"Hutch," Starsky whispered. Uselessly, because neither of them had lifted the phone.

It was another minute before Hutch lifted his gaze. He blinked twice.

"Hutch," Starsky said again. He wanted to touch his partner. Raising one hand, he pressed it against the glass. "Oh, babe."

Hutch seemed not to trust what he was seeing. It took a very long time before he slowly lifted his hand and pressed it opposite Starsky's. They stayed that way for a few minutes, before Starsky picked up the phone and waited for Hutch to do the same. Even then they didn't speak right away.

"You came back," Hutch said hoarsely.

"I been trying for a long time, man."

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry it took so long."

"Doesn't matter. You're here now."

"You okay?" It was a dumb question, of course, and Starsky knew it.

Hutch nodded. "Yeah."

Starsky wanted to let it drop, but he needed desperately to know for sure. "They didn't . . . hurt you?"

"They didn't rape me," Hutch said flatly. They sat, looking at each other, each seeming to drink in the sight of the other.

"I thought . . . I thought you died," Starsky said. "Because I didn't bring back the help I promised. I thought you died and it was my fault."

"No, I didn't die." Hutch glanced toward the door. "They won't let you stay long."

"I know. But I'll be back. We're going to beat them, Hutch. All of them. And then we're going to tell them to take their whole fucked-up system and shove it."

"I want to get out, Starsk."

"You will." Starsky wanted to smash the glass that was keeping them apart. He remembered the dream, Hutch asking for help, and he not able to give it. He remembered wanting to take Hutch in his arms to reassure him and to tell him how much he cared. His fingers moved against the glass. "I'll get you out, Hutch, if I have to blow up the whole frigging place." His voice lowered, although there was no one but Hutch to hear. "I love you, man."

"I know." Hutch looked at him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

The guard opened the door and gestured.

"I have to go," Hutch said softly.

"Damn. Hey."

"Huh?"

"We're together again, so it's gonna he okay, buddy."

For the most fleeting moment a smile hovered on the edges of Hutch's llps. "Together again?" he said. "Hell, man, we were never really apart." He pulled his hand away and then was gone from the room. Starsky stared at the closed door for a long time.

Back outside, in the grey light that preceded the dawn, Dobey was waiting, his stolid bulk pacing noiselessly. He stopped and watched Starsky cross the pavement. "Is he all right?"

Illo Bearded Starsky & jailed Hutch touching through glass

Starsky didn't answer immediately. He yanked the cigarette pack from his pocket and lit one. "I gotta cut these out," he mumbled. "Hutch'll kill me." He took a long drag; releasing it into the slightly chill air. "What the hell have you people done to him?" he asked softly, almost casually.

"What?"

"You should have done something!" It was a shout this time.

"Dave, we've been trying—"

Starsky's hand crashed down on the hood of the rented car. "Shut up! Don't tell me that. My best friend is locked up like some kind of animal. He's going crazy in there and nobody has done nothing." He stopped, turning to stare at the walls of Diablo. "I'm going to do something. If I have to . . . no matter what I have to do, I'll get him out." He got into the passenger seat and slammed the door. After a moment, Dobey got behind the wheel and they drove away.

**

XVII

He made a phone call and set up a meet with an astonished Huggy Bear.

It was nearly noon when Huggy showed up at the Keith Motel, located on the outer fringe of San Manuel. Starsky opened the door to him and they looked at one another for a long moment.

"Hi," Starsky said.

"The Prodigal Policeman returns," Huggy said lightly. A handshake turned into a slightly awkward embrace, then they sat down.

Huggy looked around the dismal room, raked Starsky's appearance shrewdly, picked up the cigarette pack and sniffed at it. "How's the boy?" he asked finally.

"I need help."

"Hope you aren't askin'?"

Starsky smiled faintly. "No. I was assuming."

"Damned well better."

Starsky sat silent for a moment, Organizing his thoughts. He was feeling a little shook. The phone call to his mother had been an emotional, yet necessary task. Now that it was done, he could relax a little. She knew he was alive and well, and that no one must know yet except herself.

"I need some I.D.," he said finally. "Jerome Lasko has done about all he can for me. I need some wheels. I need a gun—something inconspicuous."

Huggy nodded. "Okay."

"And I need it all like yesterday." He reached over for a glance at Huggy's watch. "He's in court right now. I gotta get over there."

"That ain't too smart, is it?"

"Nobody knows me." He slipped the dark glasses on. "Can you be back here sometime tonight with the stuff?"

"You don't want much, do you?"

"I want whatever it takes," he replied shortly.

Huggy pulled his lanky frame up from the chair. "We all want Hutch out of this, man."

"I know. Oh, one more thing—Dobey has a box of my clothes at his place. Can you bring them?"

Huggy promised that as well and then he gave Starsky a lift over to the courthouse. The single cop on duty waved him through the door and he slipped into the back row. Jury selection was in process. He stared for a long moment at the defense table, where Hutch sat between Kramer and another man.

Hutch turned around suddenly and saw Starsky sitting there. He smiled faintly. Starsky lifted one hand in a half wave and Hutch turned his attention frontward again.

**

The jury selection process is tedious, repetitive and crucial. Starsky tried to keep his mind on what was happening, although he itched to leave and get busy . . . to do something instead of just sitting. But there was something he needed to do here first.

At last the judge called a halt to the activity and dismissed the court for lunch. Starsky edged his way through the crowd to the defense table. Hutch watched him approach and when he reached the table, they stared tentatively at one another. This time there was no glass between them, but there was the watchful eye of the guard. Still, Starsky reached out one hand and Hutch clasped it like a drowning man might clasp a life preserver.

Kramer watched, obviously aware of who Starsky was, but not saying anything.

"I hafta go," Starsky said after a few moments.

Hutch nodded, but didn't let go.

"It's gonna be okay."

"Yeah, I know."

Starsky managed to pull his hand free from the almost painful grip Hutch had on it. "I hafta go," he repeated.

"I know. Hey—"

Starsky, turning away, stopped. "Yeah?"

"You be careful." He sounded like himself for the first time.

Starsky rewarded him with a real grin. "Tell them to be careful."

Hutch watched his partner stalk from the room and then followed Kramer to the holding room, where Dobey waited with lunch. He sat down and toyed unenthusiastically with a tuna on white toast.

Kramer eyed him. "What does Starsky think he's up to?" the lawyer asked around a huge bite of corned beef on rye.

"Huh?" Hutch took a sip of iced tea. "Oh. He's gonna get me out."

"How?"

"By finding out who killed Kimberly Wright."

Dobey was eating and listening.

"What makes you or he think he can do that on his own? The police had no luck. The P.I. we hired had no luck. Why should Starsky be able to do more?"

Hutch was a long time answering. He studied the crumbs on the paper plate, moving them around with a fingertip.

"Two reasons," he said finally, softly. "First of all, Dave Starsky is the best damned cop I've ever seen." He took a bite of the sandwich. "A lot of people don't know that. But when he gets all the wheels turning, he can leave the rest of us eating dust."

"You said two reasons."

"Yeah. He'll do a better job because he's not doing it for money or duty or even to see that 'justice is done.' Whatever the hell that means." Hutch looked at Kramer. "He's doing it out of love."

They finished lunch in silence.

**

Starsky walked to a nearby drug store and downed without really tasting a hot dog and a Coke. He asked for and got directions to the public library. His movements now were tight, yet with an undercurrent of freneticism. He had to keep his emotions in check. That was the only way he could operate now and do what had to be done. Just like when he was on the BLUE LADY, he could not let himself think much about Hutch. About his partner's bruised and ravaged face. About the way Hutch had gripped his hand so desperately in the courtroom. For at least a little longer, Dave Starsky had to keep thinking and acting like a cop.

The plump redhead behind the information desk displayed some curiosity when Starsky requested that she provide him with the local, Los Angeles, and Frisco papers for the day of the murder and those days immediately after. He smiled at her in his practiced charming way until all of the newspapers were piled on a table in front of him and then forgot her. In a moment, she gave a sniff and went away.

He spent three hours ensconced there in the corner, devouring everything that had been written on the case. Finally, his fingers blackened with newsprint, he straightened, rubbing his stiff neck and craving a cigarette. He noticed that the redhead was staring across the room at him. His smile this time was absent-minded.

The steps of the library were still warm in the late afternoon sun and he sat down to have a smoke before walking to the bus stop for the ride back to the motel. Had the last three hours been worth it? What did he know that he hadn't known before? Not much really. He now knew just who Kimberly Wright had been. And who Owen Wright was. He knew about Wright's rags-to-riches success story. How the son of a junkman had accumulated a fortune and learned to hobnob with presidents and international celebrities. He knew about the triumphs of Wright and also about his tragedies. The death of Kimberly was not the first blow of ill-fortune to strike the Wright family. Their first child, a daughter called Torrie, had been kidnapped at the age of thirteen months and never found. That blow seemed to strike hardest at Mrs. Wright. There were hints of a breakdown and subsequent trouble with alcohol, problems that seemed not at all alleviated by the birth of a second daughter, Kimberly, two years later.

It was obvious why Hutch had been railroaded. But he was no closer to knowing why Kimberly Wright had been killed. Or who might have done it. After a few minutes, Starsky sighed and crushed out the cigarette. Dobey had promised to get him copies of all the police reports. Maybe there would be something in them. Maybe, but he wouldn't count on it. What it came right down to was the fact that there was nothing he could count on, no one to depend on, except himself.

**

Dobey was waiting for him back at the motel, carrying a thick file folder. He followed Starsky into the room and dropped the folder onto the bed. "If it ever comes out that I gave you those," he muttered, "my ass will be in a sling."

"Yeah?" Starsky said, walking into the bathroom. "They get the jury all picked?" he asked through the half-closed door.

"Yes. It could be worse."

Starsky came back, zipping his jeans. "Won't matter. The case won't get that far."

Dobey settled himself into the one chair in the room. "Starsky, don't get your hopes up. You're new in this. Kramer and I have been over the same damned ground half a dozen times."

"I won't fail." Starsky seemed unable to be still. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet and shadowed-boxed in front of the cracked and yellowed mirror.

"How can you be so damned sure!" Dobey exploded suddenly. They both knew that his outburst was caused by frustration and worry.

"Because I can't fail." Starsky moved aimlessly around the room for a moment. "It's like . . . remember when Hutch was so sick and we were waiting for Callander to turn himself in?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Everybody else kept saying 'what if he doesn't come in.' But I knew he would." Dobey looked at him blankly and Starsky sighed patiently. "Because he had to come in or Hutch woulda died," he said simply. It made perfect sense to him.

After a moment Dobey got to his feet. "I better go. Trying to run the damned department by long distance." He handed Starsky a roll of bills. "Here, this should keep you going for awhile."

"Thanks. Pay you back when Hutch and I collect all our back pay."

"Don't worry about it."

"You going to court tomorrow, Cap'n?"

"Sure."

Starsky was quiet, staring at the floor. "Tell him . . . ." He shrugged. "Never mind. He already knows."

Dobey, his hand on the doorknob, nodded.

"Just tell him I said 'hi', willya?"

"I will." Dobey nodded and left.

Starsky ran across the street to a quickie fried chicken place and brought some dinner back to the room. He sat cross-legged is the middle of the bed and ate the chicken, cole slaw, and fries, while watching a KOJAK rerun on the fuzzy black-and-white TV. When he was finished with the food, he settled back to read the police reports.

By the time he heard a soft tap at the door, Starsky was half-asleep. He struggled to the surface and staggered over to open the door. Huggy, clad in a lime green jumpsuit and matching beret, bounced into the room. "Howdy," he said.

Starsky waved him to a chair and went to splash cold water on his face. "Whatcha got for me?" he mumbled through a towel.

"Why everything you asked for, of course," Huggy said. "Plus one or two surprises."

Starsky dropped onto the bed. "First things first. A car?"

"A jaunty little subcompact is parked right outside your door. The blue job." He tossed a key and Starsky caught it with one hand.

"Thanks."

Next Huggy took a brown envelope from his pocket. "Driver's license and a couple of credit cards, plus the first little surprise I mentioned."

"What?"

"A private snoop's license. Figured it would make your poking around look a little more legitimate."

Starsky smiled. "Terrific. Should I ask how you happened to get your grubby little fingers on all this stuff?"

"Not unless you want to cause yourself undue worry," Huggy said lightly. "Just say I have a friend with a most handy printing machine."

"Suits me. They haven't been fair in what they've done to Hutch, why should I fight fair against them?" He thought fleetingly of the stolen passport and the money he'd ripped off in Hong Kong. To hell with it. It was to save Hutch. "There's more?"

Huggy handed him a Browning .25 automatic. It was no larger than a pack of cigarettes. "Guaranteed to be clean."

"Yeah?" He turned the small weapon over in his hands. "Hope I don't have to go in after any elephants," he said sourly.

Huggy snorted. "Knowing you, you'd go after them with your bare hands."

Starsky smiled again. "The mood I'm in, you may be right."

"Glad you ain't on my case."

"You said there were two surprises?"

Huggy gave a self-satisfied smirk. "Been doing a little digging in my family tree and I think I finally found something. A connection for you here in San Manuel."

"A connection?"

"A cousin of mine. Lived here for years. He owns a place down on the docks. Granny says what Cousin Abraham don't know ain't worth talking about."

"I love your granny."

"Oh, she's crazy about you, too. For a honky, she say, you an all right dude."

Starsky laughed briefly. "You have cousins everywhere?"

"Probably. Anyway, I called him and said you'd be coming to talk."

"Thanks." Starsky rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand.

"You better get some sleep, man, before you crash."

"Sleep?" Starsky said dryly. "What's that?"

"See what I mean?" Huggy dropped a slip of paper onto the nightstand. "There's Cousin Abraham's address. I gotta run."

"Where you going?"

"A friend is waiting to drive me home." Huggy smiled. "She don't like waiting."

Starsky walked him to the door. "Thanks, Hug," he said.

"You don't have to say that."

"I know."

Huggy opened the door. "Look, man, you gotta have faith. Hutch is gonna come through this okay. Don't the White Knight always win in the end?"

"I guess."

Huggy touched Starsky's shoulder lightly. "But it ain't gonna do him no good if you get wiped out in the meantime." Starsky shrugged. "When Hutch gets out, man, he's gonna need you. He's gonna need you bad."

"Yeah, I guess," Starsky said slowly.

"Damned straight." Huggy left and Starsky closed the door. The low buzz of television conversation was the only sound in the room. Starsky stripped off his clothes and crawled naked between the sheets. He switched off the lamp and stared at the TV screen. Johnny Carson was talking to somebody Starsky didn't know and the audience was laughing. Starsky wondered what Hutch was doing. Blearily, he planned his itinerary for the next day. He hoped Hutch was okay.

After a while, Starsky curled on his side, shoved the pillow over his head, and went to sleep, leaving Tom Snyder droning on.

**

XVIII

Cousin Abraham operated a small tackle and bait shop next to the Strip. His age was impossible to determine—he might have been fifty or twice that. He sat on a small camp stool in front of the battered grey shack that housed his business and watched as Starsky approached. "'Lo," he said around the corncob pipe in his mouth.

"Hi," Starsky replied, leaning against the dock rail.

"No good going out today," Abraham offered. "They ain't biting."

"Why not?"

The old man shrugged. "Some days they does and some days they don't. I ain't in the business of understanding fishes. Hate to see my good bait wasted, is all."

"Well," Starsky said, "to tell the truth, I'm not here for the fishing anyway."

Abraham eyed him shrewdly. "No?"

"Huggy sent me."

"Well, to tell the truth, I had that figgered out."

"You did?"

"Anybody could tell by looking that you ain't no kind of a fishingman."

"Wish somebody would tell my partner that." They were both quiet for a moment, watching several small boats drift by. "Huggy tell you why I wanted to talk?"

"Not exactly. Said it had something to do with that girlie what got herself killed."

"Right." Starsky sat down on a crate and took out the last of his Hong Kong cigarettes. "My partner's in jail. I want to get him out."

"You figger he didn't do it?"

"He didn't."

Abraham nodded. "Cousin Huggy said that, too." He puffed thoughtfully on the foul-smelling tobacco in his pipe. "I don't generally like to get mixed up in matters involving the po-lice."

Starsky smiled a little. "This is all very unofficial."

"Considering that you be something of a fugitive yourself, I guess it would have to be, wouldn't it?"

"What can you tell me about Kimberly Wright?"

"Miss Kimberly Wright? Well, she was a rich girl. Her daddy about owns this town."

"I know that."

Abraham seemed a little miffed by Starsky's apparent impatience. "I gotta have time to get my thoughts organized, boy," he said sharply.

"I'm sorry." Starsky hunched forward a little and spoke intensely. "It's just that every minute this takes, every second, means more hurting for Hutch. My partner. That hurts me, understand?"

"Yes, indeedy I do," the old man said, speaking gently now. He sighed. "So much trouble in the world. Born in pain, live in pain, die in pain. She was a bad girl."

"Kimberly? What do you mean, bad?"

"I watched her grow up. Back when I was younger, I runned a charter boat and her daddy liked to go fishing with all his fancy friends. The little girl was all the time running around the docks. Even then, she had a bad streak in her. She liked to tease the other childrens."

Starsky arched the cigarette butt into the water. "Yeah?" was all he said.

"Wright finally sent her away to some fancy school back east. She was gone until just a few years ago. But when she come back, I could see right away that she hadn't changed none. She begun to run around, drinking and carrying on with a bad crowd."

"Men?"

"One after the other. Some from the fancy pants country club and some of them sailors who ain't worth spit."

Starsky was listening carefully. "You know a girl named Maura?"

Abraham was quiet for a moment. "Can't say I recall the name. But I seen Kimberly with a little blonde birdie a few times."

"That's her." Starsky bit his lip. "Yeah, that sounds like her. What else can you tell me?"

"Well . . . for a time, Kimberly was running with a bad penny named Lucas."

"Lucas?"

"That's all I ever heard."

After another minute Starsky got to his feet. "Okay." He reached for his wallet. "Thanks, sir—"

"I ain't taking no money. Huggy say you both be like family."

Starsky nodded. "Okay."

"Hope you git what it takes to help your friend."

"I will." They contemplated one another solemnly for a moment.

He left his car where it was and walked over to the Whistling Parrot Bar, stopping at the cigarette machine in the entrance to dig enough change out of his pocket to buy a pack. At that hour there were only a few patrons in the place and none of them displayed the slightest interest in Starsky as he crossed the room and sat down at the bar.

"Yeah?" the bartender said, taking a swipe at the counter with a filthy rag.

"Beer." He waited until the bottle was set in front of him. "Seen Lucas around lately?"

"Who wants to know?"

Starsky glanced around the room. "Anybody else asking?"

"Nope."

"Then I guess it must be me who wants to know."

The other man was silent, rubbing the rag in a haphazard circle on the bar. "You a friend of his?"

"Sort of."

"Well, he ain't been around in a while."

Starsky lit a cigarette. "How about Maura?"

The bartender only shrugged and moved away to wait on another customer. Starsky sipped beer and waited. They had what looked like a Mexican stand-off until the bartender finally wandered back. "Maura left town, I heard," he reluctantly offered. "You a cop?"

Starsky pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to his private investigator's license. "Arnie Schwartz," he muttered. "Private cop."

"Who you working for?"

"Ahh," he demurred, "I can't really say."

"Uh-huh. You want another?" the man asked, gesturing toward the bottle.

"Yeah, I guess," Starsky replied, although he didn't. "Does Maura have a last name?"

Another bottle of beer was opened and set in front of him. "This have anything to do with the Wright girl's murder?"

"What makes you think so?"

"'Cause the cops was asking about Maura, too, right afterwards."

Starsky took a swallow of beer. "What'd you tell them?"

"Nothing." He sounded proud of the fact.

"Why?"

"Why should I? Pigs never done nothing for me but make trouble. 'Sides, they already had the guy that did it, so they didn't much care."

His attitude was tiresomely familiar to Starsky. Except that this time he was grateful for it. He took a bill from the wallet and tossed it onto the counter. "Keep the change." He gave the man a minute to pick up the twenty and fold it. "You have anything to tell me? Maybe we can make the pigs look like a bunch of stumbling idiots."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Like what if they've had the wrong guy locked up all this time?"

The bartender thought about that for a moment and then he chuckled softly. "You think so? Well, I don't know Maura's last name. But I know she used to live down on the beach somewhere . . . a boarding house just below the canning factory. Usta bitch about the smell all the time is how I know."

"Lucas?"

He shrugged. "Ain't seen him since before the killing."

"Just before?"

"He was in that night. Not since. But he comes and goes a lot, so that don't mean nothing."

Starsky finished the beer and slid from the stool. "Thanks," he said, already moving toward the door.

He paused on the sidewalk to light a cigarette. Through the grimy window he could see the bartender lift the phone and dial. Starsky smiled tightly. So. He was already beginning to make waves. Good. Before this was over, he'd cause a goddamned tidal wave, big enough to drown them all, all the bastards that had done this to Hutch.

**

Hutch felt strangely detached from what was happening in the courtroom, almost as if it were all just some movie on TV and not a very interesting movie at that. He listened impassively to the medical examiner's testimony concerning the death of Kimberly Wright, listened to the first officer on the scene describe what he'd found there, and listened to Sheriff Collins' account of the arrest. As they talked, he made doodles on a pad of scratch paper.

When the lunch recess came, he ripped off the used sheets of paper and shoved them into his pocket. Kramer left for a fast meeting on another case, so he ate alone, except for the sullen company of a guard. Dobey arrived just as Hutch was finishing. "How you doing?"

"Okay."

"I had to make some phone calls. Sorry you had to eat by yourself."

"Doesn't matter. I wasn't very hungry anyway."

Dobey looked at him. "You can't let this part of the trial get you down, Hutch. Just remember, our turn will come."

"Uh-huh." Hutch gathered the remains of his lunch and shoved it into the wastebasket.

"Oh, by the way—" Dobey glanced toward the guard. "A friend of yours said to tell you 'hi'."

Hutch smiled. "Yeah?"

The guard got to his feet. "Time to go, Hutchinson."

"Okay. Cap'n?"

"What?"

"You got a pen?"

"Yeah . . . ." Dobey took a green Spree out of his pocket and handed it to him.

"Thanks. Mine went dry just before lunch." He followed the guard out the door.

**

There were a lot of cheap boarding houses along the dock and Starsky was in and out of four of them before he struck paydirt. The landlady, a scrawny woman carrying a copy of TRUE ROMANCE in her hand, answered his knock. She carefully studied his investigator's license, giving Starsky cause to wonder why that cheap piece of cardboard seemed to carry more weight than his badge had. Or maybe it just generated less hostility. She nodded sagely at his question. "Maura? Yeah, I remember her. She moved out, though."

"You know her last name?" Starsky pulled a small notebook from his hip pocket.

"Yeah . . . something foreign, I think. Gonzalez. Maura Gonzalez."

Starsky felt a twinge of doubt. Admittedly the evening he'd spent with the girl was hazy in his memory, but she hadn't seemed Mexican. Maybe she was the wrong girl after all. "Gonzalez? You're sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. Although she kept saying that she was gonna go back to her maiden name after the divorce."

"Gonzalez was her married name, you mean?"

The woman gave him a look of pity such as one might cast upon an idiot. "Ain't that what I just said?"

"Would you happen to know what her maiden same was?"

"Nope." She rustled the pages of her magazine "I got things to do, ya know."

"One more thing, please . . . what was her husband's first name?"

"Never met him." She paused, studying Starsky a little more closely. "She always just called him 'that bastard Rico.'"

"When she left, did she leave a forwarding address?"

The woman gave a sigh of saintly patience. "Nope. Blew in here one night, shoved all her clothes into a suitcase, and took off. Give me not one word of notice."

"Was she alone?"

"I don't remember." She thought for a moment, during which time Starsky read the title of the story she was itching to return to—I HAD MY BROTHER'S BABY. "Wait, there was somebody with her. A man. He waited out in front in a oar. It was dark and I don't know what kind of car," she added quickly.

"Maura ever mention a man named Lucas?"

"No." She raked him once more with a glance that seemed strangely regretful and started to close the door.

"Wait—did Maura leave town the same night that Kimberly Wright was killed?"

That gave her pause. She chewed her lower lip for a minute and then nodded. "Now that you mention it . . . yeah, yeah, it was."

"Thank you very much," Starsky said as he started down the steps.

"Sure thing, honey," she replied with rather surprising cheerfulness.

Starsky drove to a McDonald's on the edge of town and went inside. He sat in a corner booth and downed two Big Macs, fries, and a large Coke as he mulled over the results of his morning. Well, it was progress, no matter how slight. He had some names. Lucas. Maura Gonzalez or whatever. Rico Gonzalez. He swiped at his chin with the napkin. Yeah, the case was shaping up. Wait until he told Hutch.

He glanced up at the clock. Court was probably in its afternoon session. But that wasn't his concern at the moment. The next logical step for him was to try the local Records Bureau and see if there was any record for either a marriage or divorce for Maura and Rico Gonzalez.

Unfortunately, when he reached the neat adobe building that served as the county hall of statistics, there was a sign on the door informing all and sundry that this was the afternoon the office closed at twelve o'clock. He gave an impatient and useless kick at the door and went back to his car. So much for that.

Lacking any other brilliant inspiration for the moment, he went back to the motel and caught some sleep. Feeling somewhat less foggy when he woke, he called Dobey, who was just out of court. "How'd it go?"

"Oh, you know," the captain replied vaguely.

"He okay?"

"I guess." Dobey lowered his voice. "He's down, you know?"

Starsky started undressing. "Yeah? Well, look, tell him I'll come out for visiting hours tonight."

"If you keep coming around, Starsky, somebody's liable to spot you."

"Naw. Tell him I'll be there, huh?"

"All right, all right." Dobey turned official again. "You uncover anything?"

"Yeah. Things the pigs here woulda found if they'da taken their noses out of their asses for a minute. You wanta run a check for me? Rico Gonzalez. And Maura Gonzalez, although her name is probably different now.'

"That the missing broad?"

"Yeah. Look, I gotta grab a shower and head out for Diablo. Talk to you in the morning."

Within a few minutes Starsky had showered, changed into a somewhat less grubby outfit, and was walking out the door. Whistling, he climbed into the ear, inserted the key into the ignition, and felt the cold metal of a gun barrel suddenly pressed against the side of his neck. Goddamn, he thought with more exultation than fear. Goddamn, if my frigging tidal wave ain't washing a few creeps up on shore already.

**

Hutch finished dinner even more quickly than usual and went back to his cell to wait for the beginning of visiting hours. Even though he realized that it might be stupid and possibly even dangerous for Starsky to

Illo Hutch in prison playing solataire

come hack out to Diablo, he'd be so damned glad to see him that it didn't matter. Maybe this time they could really talk. He gave himself a fast shave, carefully skirting the bruises, and changed into a clean work shirt. All ready, he sat on the floor and waited impatiently for the summons to the visitor's room.

Garcia had left a deck of cards in the cell and Hutch finally started a half-hearted game of solitaire to pass the time. He lost three games before finally winning, his attention distracted by the flow of inmates through the corridor. He kept playing until the lights blitzed to signal the end of visiting hours.

He got to his feet, carefully hung the shirt back on its hook, and pulled off his trousers. Just as Garcia came back into the cell, Hutch climbed into bed and closed his eyes.

His dreams that night were muddled, almost feverish. Over and over he relived the moment in the parking lot, the instant when he came around the corner of the Torino and saw his partner lying sprawled on the pavement. That moment when the nightmares of years seemed to have come crashing in on him with a dreadful reality.

He woke up drenched with sweat and listened to Garcia jerk off in the cot below. The soft moans of the other man seemed to echo in the room, mingling with the memory of Starsky's dying groans that day in the parking lot, until Hutch felt he was going crazy with the sound. He shoved the pillow over his head and waited for morning. Seemed like this night had lasted a very long time.

**

A blindfold was pulled across his eyes and his hands were tied. Someone searched him and took the gun and the I.D. Then he was dragged across the parking lot and shoved into the back seat of another car. The ride didn't last very long, so he figured they were still in San Manuel when they stopped and entered a building that stank of cheap booze. Starsky was shoved into a chair and, apparently, forgotten.

After a while, he could hear soft voices coming from the next room, but he couldn't make out what was being said. The rope around his wrist was tight enough to bring on gangrene if left there long enough. It was visiting hours at Diablo and Hutch was probably waiting for him. And here he sat. Shit.

He didn't know how long it was before the door opened and what sounded like two people came into the room. They stood in silence for a moment.

"Forgive me for not standing," Starsky said finally.

"What'd you say this funny guy's name is?" an almost musical male voice said.

"Schwartz. Arnie. He's a P.I."

"Is he?" Someone walked around the chair with measured steps. "Mind telling me just what it is you're privately investigating here in San Manuel, Schwartz?"

Starsky sighed. "Well, it's like this. If I went around telling every Tom, Dick, and Harry who snatched me off the street just what I was investigating, it wouldn't stay private very long, would it?" he said.

Someone slapped Starsky on the side of the head and he fell halfway off the chair. A hand jerked him back up.

"That ain't an answer, Schwartz."

His ear throbbed from the blow, but Starsky only shrugged.

"Forgive Eddie. He gets a little impatient sometimes."

"Have you considered trying a leash?" Starsky muttered.

The man chuckled. "I like you, Schwartz. Why are you snooping around the Kimberly Wright case?"

"Is that what I'm doing?" Starsky jerked his head away, but this time the blow struck him across the cheek.

"Why are you snooping around the Kimberly Wright case?" the voice asked again, calmly.

"To find out who did it," Starsky spit out.

"But everybody already knows that. The pig from L.A."

Starsky only shook his head.

"Who you working for?"

He managed a smile. "I don't know."

"What?"

"See, this guy snatched me off the street one night and blindfolded me and tied me up. He said, 'Hey, Schwartz, go snoop around the Kimberly Wright murder and see what you come up with. I do all my business this way."

The third blow hit him square in the face, knocking both the chair and him over backwards. His head collided against the floor with a dull thud and he felt a warm stickiness begin to cover his hair. Everything went fuzzy for a minute. Someone jerked him up by the front of his shirt and lifted him back into the chair.

"We don't want to hurt you, Schwartz, so we're just going to make this a friendly warning. Leave San Manuel and leave the Wright case alone. We're happy with the way things are. The cop is going to take a long fall for this."

"He . . . didn't . . . do it," Starsky mumbled through swollen, bloodied lips.

A hand grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked his head back painfully.

"We don't give a damn," the whisper said. "Understand?" He was pushed away. "Get rid of him."

Still groggy from the blow to his skull, Starsky felt himself being half-carried and half-dragged back out to the car. This time they rode for what seemed like hours as he passed in and out of consciousness. At last the car stopped.

"Nice night for a walk," Eddie said with a chuckle.

Starsky felt his wallet and gun being tucked neatly back into place and then, rather surprisingly, the ropes on his arms were loosened.

He was shoved out the car door and slid down the side of a ravine. The car door slammed and he was alone. After a few minutes he sat up. Even with the ropes loosened, it took nearly two hours of diligent and painful twisting, turning, and swearing in three different languages before his hands were free. He sat for a moment, trying to catch his breath, and then whipped off the blindfold.

He couldn't see a thing. It was pitch dark out in the middle of nowhere, the only points of light a few stars peeking through the clouds. His head was pounding; his wrists were bleeding; and he thought two teeth were loose that hadn't been loose before. Inventory over, he got to his feet and began to walk along the road, hoping he was going in the right direction. Every few steps he had to stop and spit out some blood.

So much for Arnie Schwartz's first day on the job. Not exactly what you could call ending up on a high note. But not all bad either, Someone was getting worried. Someone had something to hide.

Yeah, he was on the right trail. He stumbled and nearly fell. Shit. A guy needed a partner at a time like this, somebody to back him up, to hold him up if it came to that. A partner was a definite help.

He peered at the black ribbon of the road ahead and tried singing a couple verses of STOUT-HEARTED MEN. Didn't help his morale much, but it was better than the silence.

**

XIX

Hutch waited only until the guard had gone out and shut the door of the holding area before he leaned across the table toward Dobey and spoke urgently. "Where is he?"

Dobey barely glanced up from the morning paper's account of the trial. "What?"

"Where's Starsky?"

"Hell, I don't know, Hutch. Out playing private eye, probably. Why?"

Hutch sat back in the chair gnawing at a hangnail that had been annoying him for days. "You told me he was coming out last night. He never showed."

"No?" Dobey folded the paper. "Well, something probably came up."

"Something came up?" Hutch waved a hand and swept the newspaper to the floor. "Like what? He told you he was coming. Starsky wouldn't say that and then just not show up. Something's wrong."

Kramer was gathering his papers. "We gotta go, Ken."

"Hutch, don't worry so much. Starsky's fine. He'll turn up before the day is over," Dobey said reassuringly. "You're just . . . uptight."

Hutch was going out the door behind Kramer, but he stopped and turned to look at Dobey. "You call him." He raised his hand and pointed a finger at Dobey. "Call him."

Every day the courtroom was jammed with the press and the curious, but Hutch was hardly aware of them anymore. He walked to the defense table, taking his usual chair, and pulled the scratch pad and the green Spree from his pocket. A moment later the judge entered and court was convened. As the first witness was called to the stand, Hutch picked up the pen and began to doodle. He did so absently, not paying any more attention to what he was drawing than he paid to what was being said on the stand. The testimony was like a faint whisper on his consciousness.

His drawing this day was mostly a series of question marks—big ones, small ones, question marks that looked like S's. As each page was filled, he carefully tore it off and set it aside. Kramer didn't like it, having already pointed out several times that it might have a negative effect on the jury. "Even when the accused is innocent," the lawyer had explained, "the jury would like him to sit there looking just a little bit guilty and contrite. As if he was sorry for having gotten himself into such a position and causing everyone else so much trouble."

But Hutch only shrugged off Kramer's words and kept drawing. It helped him not to think.

He didn't see Dobey again until lunchtime when the captain came into the holding room, looking harried.

Hutch pushed aside the lunch he hadn't touched anyway. "Well?"

Dobey sat down, sighing heavily. "His car is at the motel, but nobody's seen Starsky since late yesterday when he came in. The bed looks like maybe somebody took a nap, but it wasn't slept in overnight. His dirty clothes are on the bathroom floor." He shrugged. "That's all."

"All?" Hutch stared at him, fighting down a sudden surge of fear. If anything happened to Starsky, his case was lost. He'd never get out. If anything happened to Starsky . . . .

Kramer stuck his head in the doorway. "Come on, Ken," he said.

Hutch, looking and feeling like a shellshock victim, pushed himself to his feet and followed Kramer wordlessly. Dobey watched him go. Alone in the room, the heavyset policeman smashed his fist against the table. A paper cup half-filled with coffee tipped over and sent a small brown river across the floor.

**

Illo of scowling Hutch

Three cars had gone down the highway all morning. Each time, he tried to flag the vehicle down and each time, after slowing down just long enough to get a look at the filthy, bloodied man trying to get him to stop, the driver sped by. Each time Starsky flipped them the finger as they vanished.

His progress was slow. It was early afternoon when the Highway Patrol car came down the road at a rapid clip and squealed to a stop.

One tanned cop stuck his head out the window. "Somebody called us, said there was a guy needed help out here. You must be him."

Apparently one of the speeding drivers had suffered an attack of delayed conscience.

Starsky leaned against the side of the car. "Yeah, I must be."

The cop reached to open the door and Starsky fell in across the back seat. "Accident?"

"Uh, not exactly." The soft seat made him want to sleep. "It was more like a . . . difference of opinion."

"You mean somebody beat you up and dumped you?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"You got a name?"

He had to think for a minute. "Arnie Schwartz."

"From San Manuel?"

"Staying there for a while."

They drove him to the hospital, where, despite his protests, Starsky was checked over. They shaved a small patch of his hair and put four stitches in his head, and also taped both wrists. The Highway Patrolmen waited for him, but when Starsky made it clear that he had no intention of pressing charges or of pursuing the matter any further at all, they left.

Starsky caught a cab and went back to the motel. Not bothering to shower, he only changed clothes quickly and drove just within the legal speed limit to the courthouse. Despite all his hurrying, it was too late. The van had already left to take Hutch back out to Diablo.

Dobey and Kramer stood together in the parking lot and watched as Starsky walked over.

"What the hell happened to you?" Dobey asked.

"I got caught up in a tidal wave," Starsky mumbled.

Kramer tossed his briefcase into the car. "I have to tell you, Starsky, that your partner is in pretty bad shape."

Starsky leaned against the car wearily. "What do you mean?"

The lawyer got behind the wheel. "He's hanging on by a thread. When you didn't show up last night and nobody heard from you all day . . . ." He studied Starsky's face, as if trying to gauge the depth of his caring. "That guy sits and draws pictures all day in court and do you know why?"

"Uh-uh. Why?"

"Because he's decided that the trial doesn't matter. Ken has put all of his hopes squarely on you."

Starsky straightened slowly. "That's okay. I won't let him down. We're partners. Don't you know what that means?" Kramer only looked at him. "It means that we count on each other." He shook his head. "I better go. Get out there and cheer him up a little." He smiled, lightly touching the bandage on the back of his head. "We can compare injuries." The smile faded. Starsky stood there a moment longer, looking around the lot vaguely. "I better go." He walked toward his car, favoring his left foot, which had a large blister.

Dobey and Kramer watched him go.

The captain swore under his breath. "Damnit, Sam," he said. "Those two . . . they're like part of my own family. Best street cops I ever saw. And now I'm just standing here watching them both fall apart."

Sam started his car. "Think Starsky can pull it off?"

"If anybody can. The question is, what happens if he doesn't?" Kramer had no answer for that.

Dobey stepped aside and watched the lawyer drive away.

**

The guard stopped in front of the cell. "Hutchinson?"

"Yeah?" Hutch said, not lifting his head from the cot.

"Visitor."

He rolled over and looked at the guard. "What?"

"You gone deaf? I said you got a visitor. You coming or should I say you ain't receiving tonight?"

Hutch followed the guard down the hall, not allowing anything as alien as hope into his being. Hope was a long forgotten emotion. He only went where he was told and not until he was actually sitting in the cubicle did he look up and see Starsky sitting on the other side of the glass. Hutch picked up the phone. "Where the hell have you been?" he said almost savagely.

"I'm sorry," Starsky said faintly, startled.

"You were supposed to come last night—" Hutch broke off suddenly as he saw the gleaming white bandages Starsky wore. "Oh, damn," he said. "What happened?"

Starsky smiled. "I'm making progress. Somebody's getting itchy."

Hutch leaned forward a little. "Yeah?"

Quickly Starsky told him what had happened. When he was finished, he sat back, a small smile still lingering. "How's that? These idiots around here couldn't do anything, but old Arnie Schwartz gets on the case and things start to happen."

Hutch looked at him blankly. "Who the hell is Arnie Schwartz?"

"Me. That's my new moniker, sweetheart," he Bogeyed. "Arnie Schwartz, private eye. I work fast and cheap." He grinned.

Hutch laughed. "Shit," he said after a moment, "I haven't laughed . . . in a long time." He was staring at the wall. "Sometimes I thought I'd never be able to laugh again."

His partner sighed and didn't say anything.

"I love ya, man, 'cause you can always make me laugh."

"Yeah, well, everybody has to be somewhere, right?" Starsky said lightly.

"You know what I wish, Starsk?" Hutch said after a time.

"What, buddy?"

"I wish we could be on one of those damned all-night stakeouts. Where we could just talk as much as we wanted, you know?"

Starsky nodded. "I know."

The visit was going too fast. Hutch gripped the phone so tightly that his fingers were beginning to ache. "Or even just not talk. Just sitting together and not talking. Is that stupid?"

"No." Starsky's brow wrinkled thoughtfully. "One good thing, though. We don't have any regrets."

"What?"

"I mean . . . we don't ever have to say, shit, think of all the time we wasted. Cause I don't think . . . I don't feel like a single moment of it was wasted. Whether we were talking or not or fighting or whatever. Every second mattered. Every second still matters." He paused, smiling wryly. "I'm no frigging philosopher like you. Probably what I'm trying to say doesn't make any sense at all."

"It makes sense. You're a pretty good frigging philosopher, actually."

"Been hanging around you too much. Next thing, you'll have me eating boiled walnut shells or something." He glanced around the room; the visitors were beginning to drift away. "You okay?" he asked quickly. "I mean, nobody's bothering you or anything?"

Hutch shook his head. "No."

"Good." Starsky took a deep breath. "Look, things may get a little hot and heavy the next couple of days, so if I don't come around, you just hang loose, okay? I ain't saying I won't show up here or in court, but I also ain't promising. Got that?"

Hutch nodded and smiled a little, fully understanding Starsky's motivation in saying what he did. "I'll keep my cool," he promised.

"All right. And, listen, if things get a little boring in court, maybe you could get some paper and a pencil, and write down anything you can think of that might help me. We're supposed to be partners, right? Why should I do all the work?"

"Okay, Starsky. If I can think of anything."

Starsky grinned. "Great. We'll get the team of . . . ah, Schwartz and Hutchinson rolling and the bad guys won't have a chance." He glanced at the clock. "I better go, buddy."

"Yeah, I know. You be careful."

"Sure thing." Starsky hung up, gave him a quick thumbs up gesture through the glass and was gone.

**

Starsky picked up some tacos and took them back to the motel. He turned on the TV and sat in the darkened room to eat, the only light coming from the flickering images on the screen. His whole body ached. He wished that he could still feel some of the optimism he'd fed Hutch earlier. Sure, somebody was getting nervous because Arnie Schwartz was asking questions, but that was a helluva long way from cracking the case. And if the Gonzalez clue led nowhere, he would be right back to square one. Hutch, he knew, was in bad shape. Like Kramer had said, hanging by a thread. Well, maybe the busy work he'd given him to do would help. Who knew? Hutch just might come up with something.

Starsky shoved the remains of the dinner into the wastebasket, undressed, and got into bed, leaving the TV on. He fell asleep quickly and dreamt about busting Hutch out of Diablo armed only with his Browning .25 automatic and Arnie Schwartz's P.I. license.

**

XX

Starsky was waiting at the door when the Records Bureau opened the next morning. The woman who let him in gestured him to a chair and then proceeded to be very busy making coffee.

"Excuse me," he said after a few minutes, "I need some information—"

"You'll have to wait for Mr. McCaffery," she broke in briskly. "I'm the secretary."

"But if you could just . . . ." His voice dwindled off when he realized that she wasn't paying him any attention. He lit a cigarette and slumped farther down into the plastic chair. There was no ashtray in sight, so he used the cuff of his jeans to dispose of the ashes.

It was nearly fifteen minutes before the door opened again and a short plump man in a yellow-and-brown plaid suit came in. Starsky jumped to his feet. "Mr. McCaffery?" he said.

"Yes. Just a moment, please. I'll have my coffee, Miss Harris." He took the cup she handed him and positioned himself behind the counter. He next spent several minutes carefully arranging paper and sharpened pencils in front of him. Not until the entire counter was aligned to his satisfaction did he look up with a practiced smile. "Yes, sir?"

Starsky, who'd been watching all of the little man's machinations in disbelief, sighed. "I wonder if you could give me some information."

"We always endeavor to be helpful."

"I'm trying to find a record of either a divorce or a marriage for Maura and Rico Gonzalez. Specifically, I'm attempting to track down Maura Gonzalez's maiden name."

McCaffery was nodding as Starsky spoke. "And may I inquire as to why you are seeking this information?"

He took out his wallet and flipped it open. "I'm Arnie Schwartz."

"A private detective?" McCaffery studied the license and then Starsky carefully. "Are you investigating a crime?"

"I'm trying to find someone who may have witnessed a crime, yes."

"I see." McCaffery rubbed his double chin thoughtfully. "What year did the marriage take place?"

"I don't know. The divorce is recent, within the past six months or so. It may not even have been granted yet."

They decided, therefore, to start with the divorce records. It was a path that quickly led nowhere. If, indeed, the Gonzalez's had filed for divorce it had not been within this county.

Starsky received the news with a sigh, but no great sense of surprise.

That would have been too easy. "Well, we better try the marriage licenses, I guess," he said.

"Oh, dear, that does complicate matters, if you have no idea at all when the marriage took place, because all of those files are arranged chronologically by year."

"Oh, dear," Starsky echoed. "Well, why don't we just start with the records beginning five years ago and work our way forward?"

McCaffery nodded, reaching for paper and pencil. "The names again?"

"Gonzalez. Maura and Rico."

"Very good, Mr. Schwartz, if you could come back the day after tomorrow—"

"What? Hey, I need this like now," Starsky said.

"Well, I'm sorry, but we do have other work and—"

Starsky tapped the counter sharply. "Look, could I go through the records myself?"

"That' s not usual . . ."

"This could be a matter of life and death," Starsky said, feeling like a TV hero. And also like an idiot. Except that it was true.

McCaffery pursed his lips. "Well, all right. Come this way." He led Starsky to a small table in the back room and indicated several file drawers. "Maybe what you need is in there."

"Thanks," Starsky said, yanking open the first drawer. McCaffery watched him for a moment and then went about his own supposedly more urgent duties.

**

Sam Kramer made a quiet, unemotional opening to the defense's case. In it, he characterized Ken Hutchinson as a dedicated, compassionate young police officer, bewildered by the web of accusation in which he had so inexplicably found himself entangled. Hutch listened for a few moments and then picked up the green Spree. Instead of drawing pictures this time though, he carefully printed across the top of the page NOTES ON THE K. WRIGHT MURDER. Pausing to think, he chewed on the end of the pen and watched as McPherson was sworn in and took the stand. The testimony began, but Hutch was only half-aware of it, like a radio talk show going on in the next room.

"Dr. McPherson, what is your official capacity?"

"I serve as a staff psychologist for the Los Angeles Police Department."

"And in that job, what is your primary function?"

"To serve as a . . . well, as a sounding board for the men and women on the force. Being a police officer is not an easy job, never has been, and it's getting harder everyday."

Hutch wrote a neat number one on the left side of the page.

"You advise the officers?"

"I suppose you could say that, yes."

"They come to you with mental problems?"

"With emotional problems. Caused by the stresses of the job."

"I see. Not an easy task, I imagine, dealing with those people."

"Not easy, no. But I find it rewarding."

1. WHO KILLED KIMBERLY WRIGHT?

"I'm sure. Doctor, in your official capacity did you ever have occasion to meet with Mr. Hutchinson?"

"Yes. Ken paid me several visits, a number of visits, over a five-month period."

"What were your impressions of the defendant?"

2. MOTIVES: SEX? MONEY? JEALOUSY?

"I found him to be an intelligent, capable young man."

"Burdened by the stresses you mentioned earlier?"

"To some degree, yes."

3. WITNESSES: MAURA?

"Why did he come to you? Let me rephrase that. Did he come voluntarily or was it at the order of his superior?"

"He same on his own."

"Why?"

4. STARSKY SNATCH RELATED? HOW?

"Ken was going through some difficult times."

"Can you be more specific?"

"He was doubtful that the work he was doing was entirely worthwhile. A not uncommon feeling among police officers, I might add. Also, his partner had recently suffered a near-fatal injury in the line of duty. Ken was . . . very upset by that."

Hutch stared at what he'd written, feeling like there was something to be found there, if only he knew what to look for.

"What form did the defendant's difficulties take?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"How did his problems manifest themselves?"

"In rather traditional ways. Difficulty sleeping. Loss of appetite. Depression. Primarily depression."

"You treated Mr. Hutchinson for these problems?"

"We discussed his feelings in some detail. Frequently that's all that is necessary, someone to listen."

"The prosecution has attempted to portray Kenneth Hutchinson as a cold-blooded killer with a badge. A man so used to violence and death that he thought nothing of murdering a young woman who refused his sexual advances. Does that in any way tally with your own impressions?"

"Absolutely not. Ken is . . . he is actually repelled by violence. That's one reason why he came to me in the first place. He's basically a very gentle young man."

"Not a killer?"

"No."

"Thank you."

Hutch went back to number three again. WITNESSES: MAURA? He added some more words, writing precisely. THE ONES WHO TOOK STARSK??? Then he underlined the words.

"Doctor McPherson, a few questions. The defense attorney claims that Hutchinson is incapable of random violence. You agree?"

"Yes."

"How many men has he killed in his life?"

"I have no idea."

"He never said?"

"No."

"It didn't concern him?"

"Of course it did. But as a police officer he had come to realize that some violence, some death, is almost inevitable."

"I see. Was he cured of his emotional problems when he left your care?"

"I must clarify . . . he was not 'under my care' in the way you mean. He simply visited me to talk about some of the things that were troubling him."

"Very well. We accept your . . . clarification. Was he less troubled by the time you released him from care?"

"It was his decision to stop coming in."

"Did you agree?"

"I felt . . . I felt at the time that he could have been helped by further visits. It wasn't my decision to make, however."

"You felt no compunctions about letting a man with emotional problems operate as an officer of the law and carry a gun?"

"No. He was fully competent."

"Why did he quit coming to see you?"

"He felt . . . well, his partner was coming hack to work and Ken felt capable of dealing with his . . . doubts on his own."

"What was your opinion?"

Hutch was aware of a long pause. He carefully tore off the sheet of paper upon which he'd been writing, folded it, and tucked it into his pocket. His blue gaze, vaguely curious, rested upon McPherson. "My opinion was—and still is—that Ken Hutchinson is a basically moral, gentle man, who went into police work because he saw an opportunity to help those who needed it. A man who had suffered innumerable disillusionments, who had faced death frequently, who had been threatened with the loss of his partner, also a close friend. A sad man."

"And possibly a desperate man. Thank you, Doctor."

Court was adjourned for lunch.

**

McCaffery went to lunch, but the secretary ate a sandwich at her desk, watching Starsky with flat gray eyes. The search went slowly, but finally Starsky found what he was looking for, a marriage license issued to Rico Gonzalez and Maura Kennedy. He read it swiftly, smiling a little. Miss Harris seemed to sense a threat in his happiness.

"You may not remove any files from this office," she said.

"Don't need to," he mumbled. "I'm done."

He went from there to the drugstore on the corner. Before sitting at the lunch counter, he pulled the phone book from the booth. He ordered a cheeseburger and as he waited for it, his eyes studied the book. There were six Kennedys listed in the San Manuel directory and Starsky jotted down each number and address. When he paid for the cheeseburger, he took his change in dimes.

He ate quickly, then shut himself in the booth and began dialing. It took five calls. "Hello," he said for the fifth time. "May I speak to Maura, please?"

"Maura ain't here," a husky female voice said.

Starsky grinned to himself. "When will she be back?"

"She ain't coming back." The woman hung up.

Starsky left the drugstore and walked back to his car; he walked with a slight swagger in his step. He was beginning to smell success. The address he had was in an area that once would have been known as being on the wrong side of the tracks. It was a description that still fit. The house was a small wooden shack dumped in the middle of a sparse lawn littered with the skeletons of two cars, several bicycles, and the bulk of an old icebox. Starsky picked his way through the junkyard to the door and knocked.

"Yeah?" It was the same husky voice. She came to the door, a skinny woman wrapped in a filthy cotton bathrobe, carrying a glass in one hand.

He flashed the I.D. which she was too drunk to see anyway. "I'm trying to find Maura Kennedy."

She took a gulp of the drink. "What the hell is this, National Maura Kennedy Day?"

"I'm the one who called."

"Yeah?"

"I want to ask you some questions about Maura."

After a moment she shrugged and stepped aside. "Come in."

The living room smelled of whiskey, stale food, and, faintly, soiled diapers. A restlessly sleeping baby was propped carelessly in an over-stuffed chair.

"My daughter's kid," the woman said. "Bet you'd never think I was a grandmother, wouldya?"

He figured the question was rhetorical. Shifting a pile of un-ironed laundry, he sat down on the sofa. "Maura?"

"My niece. But I brung her up from six months on, after my brother-in-law and his wife was killed. Took her in like she was my own. And what thanks do I get?"

This question she apparently expected an answer to.

"What thanks?" he said right on cue.

"No thanks at all, that's what. She was always a smart-mouthed brat. Giving herself airs. Thinking she was better than the rest of us. Making up stories. Why, one day she done told all the neighbors she was the illegitimate daughter of the Queen of England, if you please." The woman snorted drunkenly.

"Where is Maura now?"

"Who knows? She come running back here after that Spic husband of hers kicked her out, but my husband said she made her own bed, let her lay in it. So she got a room somewheres."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"Gee, I don't know for sure. Been awhile. I think she left town."

"Did she ever mention a man named Lucas?"

"Mebbe . . . she always had some man or another hanging around. But I don't remember any names."

Starsky glanced around the room and felt a sudden sympathy for the girl Maura trying to escape this place. "If she did leave town, do you have any idea where she might go?"

The woman shook her head and Starsky got to his feet. He scribbled his name and phone number on a piece of paper.

"If you hear from her, will you call me at this number?" He paused before adding, "There'll be something in it for you."

She took the paper and tucked it into the pocket of her robe. "Okay."

"I can let myself out." He cast one look at the whimpering baby and left. Back in the car, he sat for a moment, glad to be out of the filthy, depressing house and away from the woman. He lit a cigarette. So he had a name. Maura Kennedy. A girl who probably left town. Possibly with a man. A man named Lucas? Maybe. Maybe not. Some of his earlier confidence began to seep away.

Sighing, he started the car and pulled away.

**

They caught up with him in McDonald's when he stopped to have a cup of coffee and mull over his next step. He had just started to eat the hot apple pie when the two men slid into the booth, one next to him and the other across the table. It was a good technique; Hutch and he had used it a lot.

"How's the pie?" one asked casually.

"Depends," Starsky replied.

"On what?"

"How hungry are you?" He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully.

"Let me guess," he said around the bite. "This is a survey of San Manuel's classier eating places and you want my opinion. Right?"

The man next to him was playing with several sugar packets. He looked like a cheap muscle man crammed into as expensive suit. "Wrong. Guess again, Schwartz."

"Gee, you know my name. What can I call you?"

"How about sir?"

"How about turkey?" Starsky finished the pie and swiped crumbs from his face. "Look, this has been fun and we gotta do it again real soon, but I have places to go and things to do, so . . . ." He started to slide out and was not the least bit surprised when the turkey didn't move to let him by. "Yeah?" he said wearily.

"Somebody wants to talk to you."

Starsky picked up one of the sugar packets and twisted it in his fingers. "Well, I'll tell you something. The last time somebody wanted to 'talk' to me, I ended up with four stitches in my head. Conversations like that get a little boring."

"This is just for talk, that's all."

Starsky didn't really have to think about it at all. He was foundering and he knew it. There wasn't much he could tell anybody. On the other hand, he stood to maybe learn something that might help. "Okay," he said cheerfully. "Where's this talk supposed to come down?"

"Follow us."

A very large black car was parked behind the building. It didn't look like whoever was inside just dropped in for a quarter-pounder with cheese. The turkey opened the back door and Starsky got in. A slender, grey-haired man in a pale green suit sat there, smoking a thin black cigar. "Mr. Schwartz, I assume?"

Starsky nodded. "Yeah. How come everybody knows my name and I don't know who any of you are?"

"My name is Owen Wright."

This was no big surprise. "Kimberly was your daughter."

"Yes. So maybe you can understand why I'm anxious to know why a cheap detective named Arnie Schwartz is snooping around the case." Wright exhaled a grey cloud toward Starsky.

Starsky pulled the cigarette pack from his pocket, took one out, and lit it with deliberation. "Maybe I just like to snoop."

"Word is you don't think Hutchinson did it."

"I know he didn't."

"How do you happen to know that?"

Starsky almost told him the truth—I know it because Hutch is my partner and I know him even better than I know myself and he isn't a killer. But he didn't say any of that; instead, he just struck an Arnie Schwartz pose and blew smoke across the car toward Wright. "Let's just say I know it," he mumbled.

"Well, you're wrong."

"Yeah?"

"Who are you working for?"

Starsky grinned. "I may be a cheap detective, Wright, but I know the rules just as good as the three-hundred-dollar a day boys. One of the real big rules is don't tell who your client is."

Wright tapped the seat impatiently. "What is he paying you?"

Starsky didn't even bother to answer that.

"I'll double it." Wright waited. "Triple it, if you get off the case and leave town right now."

"Triple?" Starsky said thoughtfully.

"In cash, right now."

Again, he was tempted toward honesty. Tempted to say that there was no way Wright could pay him enough to equal what he was getting from his "client." Money couldn't buy a partner. Or a friend like Hutch. Starsky rolled the car window down and flicked the cigarette out. "Sorry, Wright," he said. "There's another rule. Don't get bought off."

"I'm disappointed, Mr. Schwartz. You don't look stupid."

"Sorry about that."

Wright's face changed subtly. "Try to see this from my point of view, won't you, please?"

"Okay," Starsky said agreeably.

"My daughter . . . my only child is dead. Killed violently just at a time when her life was beginning." He was silent for a moment, staring at his cigar. "We lost another child, you know."

"Yes."

"My wife never recovered from that. If we could only have known what happened to her . . . . With Kimberly, at least, we do know. Can't you begin to understand that I only want to have it all behind us as quickly as possible? Otherwise, my wife . . . . The man who did it is on trial. Let justice run its course. Why go around trying to . . . to upset the apple cart?"

"Is that what I'm doing?" Funny, Starsky mused, and here I thought I was just foundering. But I was upsetting the apple carts of an important man like Owen Wright. Funny. "If Hutchinson is as guilty as you seem to think he is, then what harm can I do by asking a few questions?"

"What's the point?"

"Maybe to amuse myself."

"Let my daughter rest in peace," Wright said tightly.

"Even if an innocent man has to pay?"

There was a pause. Wright's cigar had gone out and he fumbled for a silver lighter. "Hutchinson is guilty," he said mechanically, as if he'd learned the words by rote. His eyes turned icy. "Get off the case, Schwartz. I'm breaking one of my rules by giving you a warning. There'll only be one. Leave it alone."

The turkey standing just outside opened the door and Starsky got out. He nodded at Wright and walked away, the skin on his spine prickling a little, as he waited to see if maybe the bit about the warning had just been a bluff. Maybe a sudden shot would blow him apart. Who knew what the punishment for upsetting apple carts was in San Manuel?

But nothing happened. He reached his car and got in, slamming and locking the door. So. Now they were chomping at his heels from two directions. Whoever it was that had split his head and Owen Wright himself. Terrific. And all he had to do was find Maura Kennedy. Because maybe she knew something, Of course, maybe she didn't. He shook his head wearily. Poor Arnie Schwartz. It began to look like he was swimming out of his league.

**

Illo bearded Starsky framed in window

XXI

Two days went by and it began to look like Arnie Schwartz should have chosen some other line of work. Detection did not seem to be his forte. Starsky had tried everything he could think of to find Maura Kennedy and he had nothing to show for it. He began to think that she—or maybe he himself—was floating somewhere in the twilight zone. Neither had he come any closer to finding out who "Lucas" might be. As desperation began to set in, he even spent half a day trying to find Rico Gonzalez, thinking he might know where his ex-wife was. He did manage to trace Gonzalez to his last job as a vacuum cleaner repairman, but nobody in the hot, noisy factory seemed to know where the man was now.

By the end of the second day Starsky felt totally exhausted, drained, near the point of OD-ing on black coffee and cigarettes. It was late afternoon when he got back to the motel room, spread his wrecked body on the bed, and stared dumbly at the ceiling.

"Oh, hell, Hutch," he said aloud. "I don't know what to do next. What an ass. Look, everybody, come watch Captain Marvel fall flat on his face. I had to play hero, right? Screw everybody else, 'cause David Michael Starsky is gonna come in and single-handedly save his partner. Oh, yeah!"

He sighed. Hell, I need . . . what do I need? To talk to Hutch. Yeah, that's what I need. He got up, washed his face, and drove out to Diablo, stopping on the way for a fast pizza and arriving just in time for visiting hours.

Hutch smiled as he took his chair. "Hi," he said.

"Hi, yourself."

There was a pause. Hutch stared at him, the smile fading slowly. "Hey," he said softly. "What's wrong?"

Starsky rubbed his eyes, which felt like they were full of sand. "Hutch," he said, "I . . . goddamn. I'm falling all over myself. Captain Marvel is taking a nosedive. Nothing's happening. For two days I've been running all over trying to get something to go on, some little thing I can get a grip on and there's nothing." He spread his hands helplessly. "There's not a goddamned thing."

"You look beat, man."

"Beat?" Starsky laughed a little. "Shit, I don't know if I'm coming or going." It was suddenly hard to breathe and he took a gasping gulp of air. "I showed up and told everybody I was gonna do it. Hutch is my partner, I said, and I'll take care of this, I'll get him out. I thought, I really thought that it would all just fall into my lap like it used to for us. Or, I mean, it didn't exactly fall into our laps, but it worked. Somehow it always worked, you know?"

"I know," Hutch said quietly.

"And Christ, I've been trying, harder than I ever tried on anything, but every lead I get just goes nowhere. I can't make it happen." He seemed to run out of breath completely.

"Hey," Hutch said again. "You're going to get it, buddy."

"Stop believing in me!" The words came out as a hoarse shout and Starsky looked around the room quickly. "Please," he said more softly.

"No." Although Hutch spoke softly as well, his voice rang with such intensity that it startled Starsky. "No," Hutch repeated. "I will not stop believing in you. That would be like losing faith in myself."

"But what if I can't do it?" Naked anguish cut through Starsky's words like a blade.

Hutch smiled. "Then I guess you'll just have to bust me out, sweetheart," he said, giving a poor imitation of Starsky-as-Bogart.

After a moment, Starsky returned the smile. "Hell," he muttered. "All this time I thought I was supposed to be the funnyman in this relationship."

"You ready to talk now?" Hutch asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay, good." He paused. "I think I came up with something."

Starsky's gaze sharpened. "Yeah? What?"

"It may not be worth much. Nothing, maybe, but . . . do you think it's at all possible that the jerks who snatched you might've seen something?"

"Wong and Rossi?" Starsky thought about it for a moment; funny, since finding out that Hutch was alive, he'd almost forgotten all about those two.

"Wong and Rossi?" Hutch repeated. "You must be kidding. They sound like a vaudeville team."

"Oh, yeah, they're a million laughs all right."

Hutch was quiet for a moment. "You haven't said much about what happened to you."

Starsky shrugged. "Later, man. Some night real soon we'll get totally drunk and tell each other stories."

"Sounds good to me."

"Me, too. Sounds goddamned wonderful, if you want the truth." Starsky glanced at the clock and grimaced. "Damn. It always goes so fast."

"So whattaya think?"

"About Wong and Rossi?" He nodded slowly. "You might have something there. Yeah. Hell, I knew that once we could get the old Hutchinson grey matter working, everything would start to fall into place."

They were silent briefly. Hutch sighed. "I'm going on the stand in the morning."

"Is that Kramer's idea?"

"Yes. I guess he doesn't know what else to do. So far . . . well, let's just say the defense case hasn't exactly set the world on fire. He wants me to get up there and look innocent."

"You are innocent."

"Ahh, well, babe, that's reality. What goes on in the courtroom has very little to do with reality. I sit there and listen to these people talk about me and about my life and I wonder . . . whatever happened to me? I don't recognize myself anymore."

Starsky nodded, remembering his own thoughts that night on the Hong Kong street, when he didn't even recognize his own reflection in the window. "I know who you are," he said a little awkwardly. "Do you want me to come to court tomorrow?" He didn't really want to—he wanted to keep hacking away at the undergrowth surrounding this case, but he made the offer.

"Hell, no. You better get out there and beat the bushes for that frigging song and dance team."

"Okay. I'll be thinking of you."

"I know that."

It was time to go.

"Okay," Starsky said. No matter how many times it happened, he hurt every time he had to walk away and leave his partner in this place.

"Hey," Hutch said.

In the act of hanging up, he paused. "Yeah, buddy?"

"You watch out, huh? You have this unsettling habit of disappearing."

He grinned.

"Gottcha." Starsky turned and walked away quickly.

**

Hutch was awake for a long time that night. Part of the reason for his sleeplessness was the fact that he was nervous about going on the stand the next day. Not for the first time, he wondered if Sam Kramer was right in insisting that he must testify. But it had been decided and there was nothing he could do about it now.

Besides, there was something else nagging at him. Starsky. His partner, usually so confident, damned cocky in fact, had looked like hell earlier. And Hutch knew why: Starsky was scared. That simple fact scared Hutch more than anything else. He didn't like being scared. It made him angry at himself and it even made him angry at Starsky. And that was dumb. It wasn't as if Starsky was deliberately betraying him. He was trying his best.

Hutch slammed one fist into his pillow. Now he was really mad at himself. What the hell was he thinking of? His partner was putting his neck right on the line and just because he hadn't yet performed any miracles, no rabbits pulled out of a hat, Hutch was ready to start doubting him. Jesus. He didn't deserve a friend like Starsk.

He punched the pillow again. Now that was really stupid; he could just imagine what Starsky would say to that. His partner would lean back and crinkle up his eyes in a disgusted grin. "Shit, Hutch," he'd say, "for somebody who's supposed to be so damned smart, you're a real ass, you know?" True, Hutch thought. They deserved each other. They were stuck with each other.

He smiled a little into the darkness. Sometime he'd tell Starsky about his late night doubts. Maybe on that infamous night of total drunkenness they'd talked about. It might seem funny by then. Or, at least, it might serve as a sort of confessional, wherein Starsky could confer forgiveness.

Hutch squeezed his eyes closed and tried to go to sleep.

**

XXII

Cousin Abraham might not have moved since the last time Staarsky visited him. He sat on the same camp stool and watched with no surprise as Starsky walked along the dock toward him. "Howdy-do," he said.

"Hi," Starsky said, crouching next to him.

"They be biting today, if you're interested."

"Nope ."

Abraham studied him for a moment and then grinned toothlessly. "You don't look like no typhoon to me, boy."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The old man chuckled. "I been hearin' about you. Folks say that this boy Arnie Schwartz been stirring things up around town. Something like a storm blowing in." He tapped his pipe against the side of the stool lightly. "Frankly, I'm a mite amazed to find you still all in one piece." He glanced at the bandages. "Though it do appear you have been a trifle disturbed."

"Just a trifle. It's nice to hear that I've been noticed."

"That you have been." He began stuffing tobacco into the pipe. "I don't figger you came by just to pass the time of day with me."

"No. I wanted to ask you something."

"I 'm listening."

"You ever hear anything about a couple of guys named Rossi and Wong?"

Abraham's lips tightened on the pipe stem. "Thought you was interested in the Wright girl's murder. Why for you asking me 'bout them?''

"You do know them, then?"

"Mebbe. Why?"

Starsky stared out over the water, watching a small sailing skiff make its way past. "Because maybe they saw something the night of the murder. Something that might help me track down the killer. So I can get my partner out of jail."

"You brings to mind a puppy dog I once had," Abraham said mildly. "Sixty or seventy years ago down in 'bama. Dingy little mutt, he was. Name of General Grant. I mean to tell you, boy, let that dog git something in his mouth and no amount of persuasion could get him to get him to let go. He'd worry a bone or a stick plumb to death. You like him. You got this thing in your mouth and you ain't inclined to let go."

"I can't let go," Starsky said fiercely.

"Yeah, I knows that," Abraham said with a sigh. "Jest like poor old General Grant. He died 'cause he wouldn't let go of a rope. A wagon wheel ran him over. Cut him right in half. And when we found the danged mutt, he still had that rope clenched tight between his teeth."

"Rossi and Wong?" Starsky insisted softly.

"They ain't much liked around here. Very mean. They involved in a dirty business."

"I know all about their business. But that's not what I'm interested in. I only want to talk to them."

Abraham cleared his throat and spit. "They both a good deal like the vampire bat. Don't think they ever comes out in the daylight. Best time to see them, assuming any good Christian would want to, is at night. They're usually prowling around somewhere." Abraham studied Starsky and grinned again, showing toothless gums. "Or any good Israelite, either."

"Have they been around lately, do you know?"

"Seems like I heard they been in town the last couple of days." Abraham paused. "Assuming you finds them, you won't let on where you heard? They have been known to deal harsh with folks who cross them."

"I won't say a word." He took a bill from his pocket and tucked it into Abraham's tackle box. "Buy yourself a drink. And thanks." Starsky started away.

"Hey, boy," Abraham called.

He paused. "Yeah?"

"You keep old General Grant in mind, hear?"

"I will." Starsky waved a quick farewell.

Back in the car, he deliberated. Since there didn't seem to be much he could do about finding Wong and Rossi until nightfall, he decided to go over to the courthouse. Maybe he could at least offer a little moral support to Hutch.

**

He slipped into the last row of seats, sitting next to a reporter who was busily scribbling notes into a steno pad. Hutch was already on the stand. He looked pale, but calm, wearing slacks and a plaid sport jacket that had once been carefully tailored to fit, but now seemed to hang on his thin frame. His knees were pressed together and his hands rested on the arms of the chair.

Sam Kramer paced in the front of the room. "What happened next, Ken?"

"We got into the car." Hutch's voice was soft, but clear. "I was driving. We started down the hill and then I realized that the car had no brakes."

"And so you hit the barricade?"

"Yes."

"What else do you remember?"

"Nothing." He glanced toward the jury box and repeated, "Nothing."

As his gaze moved hack toward Kramer, he saw Starsky sitting in the back and some of the stiffness seemed to leave his body. Starsky gave him a smile.

Before Kramer could ask the next question, Starsky felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and a large man in a brown uniform gestured at him. Starsky got to his feet and followed the man into the hall. He could feel Hutch's gaze on him as he left. They stopped just outside.

"Yeah?" Starsky said neutrally.

"I'm Sheriff Collins."

"Yeah?" he said again.

"You wouldn't be Arnie Schwartz, would you?"

"As a matter of fact, I am. Why?"

"Call it professional curiosity. Mind if I take a look at your license? I understand you've been flashing it around town the last few days."

Slowly Starsky pulled out the wallet; it seemed unbelievable that the man didn't recognize him, but he was so busy playing macho lawman and lording it over the insignificant private eye that he wasn't paying any attention to Starsky at all, not really. "No law against the business of detecting in San Manuel, I hope?"

Collins leaned forward a little and carefully studied the license. "Nope. We are kinda down on troublemakers, though."

Starsky flipped the wallet closed and put it away. "Have I been making trouble?"

Collins smiled, making Starsky think of a mako shark on the prowl.

"If you had been, we would've met before now. Let's just say I've been made aware of your activities."

"Okay," Starsky said cheerfully. "We'll just say that."

"People get the impression you're trying to stir up the Wright case. This town would rather put the whole thing behind us and forget it."

"I didn't think a case was over until the guilty party was convicted."

"Well, see, that's just about to happen in that courtroom."

"I don't happen to think that Hutchinson is guilty."

"No?" Collins wasn't smiling now; his tanned face was hard. "I happen to think my men did a bang-up job on this investigation."

Starsky looked at him through the dark glasses. Oh, yeah? he thought. Well, I happen to think that your men couldn't find their pricks in a pay toilet. He didn't say that, of course. "I'm sure," was his mild response.

"We wouldn't be too happy if some stranger same to town and started trying to fault our police. Why not just let justice take its course?"

"Even if justice San Manuel style runs right over an innocent man?"

"The question doesn't arise. Hutchinson is guilty."

Starsky leaned against the wall, hoping to hell he looked more relaxed than he felt. "Everybody keeps saying that, but I ain't convinced yet. My mother always said I was too stubborn for my own good."

Collins took off his hat, straightened the brim carefully, and put it back on. "Let's hope she wasn't right." He nodded pleasantly and walked toward the door.

Starsky stood there for a moment. His first instinct was to cut out as quickly as possible, but he knew that first he had to let Hutch know that everything was cool. Just as he started back into the courtroom, the crowd began to flow out, adjourning for lunch. He pushed his way through until he reached the defense table. There, he rested one hand on Hutch's shoulder. Touch was a rare commodity these days. "Hi."

Hutch looked up in obvious relief. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah. He was just rattling his sabers."

"Jesus. I figured he was measuring you for the cuffs."

"Not quite. Only because he hasn't thought of a reason yet. Look, buddy, I gotta go. Lots to do before tonight."

"What happens tonight?"

Starsky didn't want to go into detail. He might be getting himself in too deep, but there was no sense in having Hutch worry about that now. "The plot's gonna thicken, babe." He lowered the dark glasses to look at Hutch. "I got a feeling."

"What?"

"That little itch I get on the back of my neck when a case is about to break. So hang in there." He squeezed Hutch's shoulder and they exchanged a brief smile. Starsky pushed the glasses back up on his nose, nodded once to Kramer, and walked out.

Kramer picked up his briefcase. "Ken, has anybody ever told you that he's a little crazy?"

Hutch smiled again. "A little crazy? Sam, he's a total maniac. The man should be confined to a padded cell somewhere."

Kramer snorted and shook his head as they went for lunch.

**

He looked at himself in the motel room mirror and gave a grunt of self-satisfaction. A fast visit to the local army surplus store had provided him with a couple of items to complete the image he felt was appropriate for his nightime sojourn to the waterfront.

His own thoroughly disreputable Levis were topped with a heavy plaid work shirt and a worn black sweater. He pulled a black watch cap over his curls and added the ever-present dark glasses. He figured he could pass as a crewman off one of the ships in the harbor. This could get confusing, he thought, shoving a couple of cheap cigars into his pocket. Who was he now anyway? Starsky posing as a sailor? Or Dave Starsky posing as Arnie Schwartz posing as a sailor? He grinned. Oh, well, what the hell?

Even eliminating the Whistling Parrot from his plans left him with a dozen or so bars to choose from. He tossed a mental coin and went into a place with no name at all, just a rather faded purple neon sign that flashed the self-explanatory word BAR into the night every other second. He swaggered in and took a place at the bar. "Whiskey."

The glass was dirty. He gulped the cheap liquor and felt it burn his gullet all the way down. Actually, it made him feel kind of good. So he gulped again. By then he figured it was safe to case the joint a little. He swiveled around casually studied the crowd.

It was a little disappointing that no one came over and introduced himself as either Wong or Rossi. He finished the whiskey and ordered another.

"Just get in?" a voice said from his left.

He turned. "Yeah. How'd you guess?"

She smiled, sweeping a lock of platinum hair from in front of her eyes. "You got the face, honey. Sort of a lean and hungry look. Like a man on the prowl."

Illo Bearded Starsky with cap & scary sunglasses

"You're a great judge of character."

"Sure. I work as a shrink in my spare time."

He smiled. "Have a drink?"

They sat in silence while both their glasses were re-filled. The woman was older than he'd first thought, probably in her forties. Her make-up looked like it had been put on many hours ago; it was beginning to crack around the edges. She sipped at her drink with ladylike care. "My name's Monique."

"Arnie," he said, not ready to cope with a third name. Someone turned the jukebox up and conversation waned for a moment.

"Hey," Starsky said when the sound dimmed a little.

"Yeah, honey?"

"I've been trying to find a friend of mine, a guy named Rossi."

"Rossi?"

"Yeah. You know him?"

She had turned wary. Her face seemed to have closed. "I know a lot of people."

"How about Rossi? You know him?"

She swiveled away from him and slid from the stool. "Look, baby, I can't make no money talking."

He grabbed her by the arm and turned her toward him again. "Wait." He took a bill from his pocket, carefully folded it, and tucked it into the front of her dress. "That buy a little conversation?"

She glanced down at the money. "A little."

"Rossi?"

"My name won't be brought up?"

"I forgot it already," he promised.

"It might not be the same guy. Could be a lot of guys named Rossi running around."

"I'll give it a shot."

She fingered the errant lock of hair. "There's a guy named Rossi hangs out around Joe's down at the corner."

"Thanks, honey."

She watched as he paid for the drinks. "You a cop?"

"Me?" He smiled brightly. "No, ma'am, not me. I got too much class for that kind of work."

Joe's was not much different from the place he'd just left. Before going in Starsky stood in the alley and pulled his shirttail out, arranging his face in a properly drunken expression. He staggered in through the door and fell twice before finally getting himself onto a stool. "Whiskey! " he shouted.

He sat there for fifteen minutes, downing two more drinks and making a general pest of himself. Then he slid from the stool, making his way out the door and into the alley. He sensed that someone followed him, but forced himself not to turn and look.

Slipping one hand into his pocket, he fingered the gun. A fairly worthless weapon in most circumstances, but used with a little discretion, it might prove effective. He fell to his knees once, got up and walked a few more steps, then slumped to the ground and lay motionless. His hand felt sweaty on the gun as he tried to keep his breathing steady. Timing, his Uncle Moishe the comedian used to say, was everything. Moving a little early would render his gun harmless as a toy; delay beyond a certain point might mean his veins would be filled with the knockout drugs again and he would wake up on the way to hell.

The footsteps approached slowly as Starsky stayed perfectly still. He could sense two men standing over him.

"So?" one voice said. "Whattaya think?"

"Why not?"

Someone bent close and Starsky moved. The hand with the gun jabbed upwards, the barrel pressing against the man's neck. Starsky's other hand grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled backwards. "If you or your friend make a move," he whispered tightly, "he's gonna be short one business partner and you . . . well, you're gonna be dead." He tightened his hold on the man's hair. "Believe me when I say I won't have any hesitation in blowing you away."

"Hey, man," his prisoner protested. "We were only trying to help. Saw you fall down and figured you might be sick or something."

"Oh, yeah," Starsky said getting to his feet carefully and pulling Rossi with him. "Oh, yeah. Wong and Rossi, the two great humanitarians."

They looked a little startled.

"I think you've got us confused with two other guys," Wong said with a twitching smile, his eyes on the gun at Rossi's neck.

"I don't think so."

"Look," Rossi said, "this is all some crazy misunderstanding. Why don't we just—"

"Shove it, Rossi. I got no time to dance with you. You know and I know all about your dirty little business. I've already been on one cruise, compliments of Wong and Rossi Associates. I've got no intention of taking another."

"I'm sorry," Rossi began.

"Forget that for right now. Maybe later we can talk about that. Right now, I want to talk about something else." He saw Wong's left foot slide a little toward him. Before either of them could react, he pulled his hand out of Rossi's hair and gave him a sharp karate chop to the right side. The sound of bone cracking filled the air and Rossi bent over in sudden agony. Starsky entangled his fingers in the man's hair again and jerked him upright.

"Tell Wong to hold tight," he said softly. "Or we can work our way through your ribs one by one."

Rossi waved a hand and gave an anguished grunt in Wong's direction.

Wong froze.

Starsky nodded in satisfaction. "Okay, I think we understand each other now. I want to talk about the Kimberly Wright murder."

"Hey, we didn't have anything to do with that," Rossi said between his teeth.

"I know that." Starsky's hand was beginning to cramp around the small gun. "You didn't kill her, but you were around when it happened."

"How do you know that?" Wong asked.

"'Cause you snatched me that night not far from where the murder took place. I want to know what you saw that night. Everything."

"That was a long time ago," Rosei said.

"I know. A long time. And a good friend of mine has been in jail ever since. I know he didn't kill the broad and I want you to give me something so I can prove it. You must have something and I want it. Cooperate and I may not kill you."

"We didn't see nothing, man, I mean . . ."

Starsky raised his knee a little so that it pressed lightly into Rossi's side. The man groaned. "You better think harder. I saw a guy once who had a broken rib and it pierced his lung. You think about it. There was a car crash just down the road."

"Yeah . . . yeah," Rossi said eagerly. "You remember that, don't you, Lin? We saw the car against the barricade."

"I remember," Wong agreed. "But there wasn't anything else . . . ."

"There better be." Starsky's voice was soft, almost caressing.

There was a silence. For three minutes, Wong and Rossi stared at one another, both obviously thinking desperately. Starsky just waited.

"Well," Rossi said finally, "there was another car."

"Good," Starsky crooned. "Tell me about it."

Rossi closed his eyes. "It was . . . dark . . . green, I think."

"Yeah, dark green, that's right, Tony."

"License?"

Rossi opened his eyes and stared at him as one might stare at a madman. A madman with a loaded gun. "Come on! Whattaya expect?"

"I expect an answer."

"Nevada," Wong said suddenly. "They were Nevada plates."

"Good. Now we've got a dark green car with Nevada plates."

Wong moved a half inch and Starsky's knee poked into Rossi's side. Rossi made a sound halfway between a groan and a scream.

"You better tell him one more time," Starsky warned.

"Lin, for chrissake . . . he's killing me."

Wong stopped. Starsky's knee relaxed. Rossi took several deep breaths. "I hope you don't expect us to come up with the number?"

"That would be nice."

"Look, man, this was a long time ago. It was dark. We didn't care."

"You saw a car accident and you didn't care?"

"We were working." Rossi didn't seem to find anything funny in that remark. "Besides, we saw the other car stopped and we figured they'd help."

"They? How many people were in the green car?"

"Two, I think. Two men."

Wong, who had been staring at the ground, looked up suddenly. "No numbers," he said flatly. "There were no numbers on the plate."

"What?" Starsky waited.

"It was letters, not numbers. A name, like."

"Vanity plates?" Starsky shifted his hold on Rossi a little. The man was quiet, staring at his partner. "What name?"

Thirty seconds passed. "It was . . . L . . . something. Lucas. That's it. L-U-C-A-S."

Starsky expelled his breath in a long sigh. "A dark green car, Nevada plates, Lucas. Two men. Anything else?"

They shook their heads simultaneously.

"No, man," Rossi said. "That's it. Really."

Starsky figured that it probably was. "Okay. Now there's just one more little thing."

"What?" Wong asked.

"You better take this act somewhere else. Somewhere a long way from here. Because if I ever hear about you operating again, I'll personally come back and break more than just a rib. Got that?"

"We got it," Rossi said.

"Fine. I suggest, Wong, that you better get him to a doctor."

"Yeah."

"But for now, Wong, disappear. When you're gone, I'll release Rossi."

Wong hesitated a moment, but Rossi felt Starsky's knee twitch and he waved him away. Wong moved quickly out of the alley. After he had turned the corner, Starsky released his hold on Rossi, who nearly caved in, but then started lurching after his partner, groaning a little with each step.

Starsky kept the gun in his hand as he walked back to the car. Checking the back seat carefully, he slid behind the wheel and locked the doors.

The whiskey glow he'd felt earlier was gone and now he was chilled and very tired. Time to go back to the motel and bed.

Before he could sleep, though, there were two things he had to do.

First of all, he placed a call to the Nevada authorities, passing himself off as representing L.A. Homicide, and requested information on the Nevada plates. That garnered him a whole name—Lucas Mahoney—and an address in Vegas.

All that information carefully recorded in his notebook, he next took a sheet of motel stationery and scribbled a fast note that he could drop off at Dobey's motel on his way out of town early the next morning. When the note was sealed in an envelope, Starsky dropped onto the bed and fell asleep fully dressed.

**

XXIII

They had a meeting the next morning over coffee and pastry Kramer had brought. Hutch picked at the icing on a roll. "So? Did I do myself any good yesterday?"

Kramer finished one roll and reached for another. "Well, you didn't do any harm."

"Great."

"Today is what really counts."

"Yeah. And I suppose the courtroom will be packed so everybody can see Phipps tear me apart. I feel like the main event in the Coliseum."

Kramer glanced at him sharply. "You just stay cool."

"Oh, yeah. Cool is my watchword."

Dobey came in, looking determinedly cheerful. "Morning, everyone."

Kramer smiled, while Hutch only grunted and took a gulp of coffee.

"Here," Dobey said handing him an envelope. "This was shoved under my door this morning."

Hutch turned the envelope over and saw his name scrawled across the front in Starsky's unmistakable style. He ripped it open. "Dear Hutch," he read quickly to himself, "Following a hot tip to Vegas. Back as soon as possible. Give the bastards hell on the stand today. We gottem, boy. Love, Starsk." He folded the note and slipped it back into the envelope, then put it into his pocket. "Gone to Vegas," he said in answer to Dobey's questioning glance.

"Why?"

Hutch shrugged.

"Come on, Ken, time to go."

He took a deep breath and stood. "Think this will go on all day?"

"It might, Ken. You'll be fine." They walked out of the room in single file.

Phipps smiled. "All right, Mr. Hutchinson, since the defense has brought up the subject of your job, let's talk about that a little."

"Okay."

"Do you like being a police officer?"

Hutch could feel small drops of sweat forming on his palms, but he did not allow himself to wipe them off. "Sometimes."

"And sometimes not?"

"I don't know anybody that likes their job every minute of every day."

"You may be right. What parts do you like?"

"What? Well . . . I like it when we make a good clean bust."

"You mean when you arrest somebody?"

"Yes. When we track down somebody who deserves to be caught and we catch him. That's a good feeling."

"Anything else you like besides arresting people?"

Hutch wondered how two people could be talking about the same thing and it could come out sounding so different. "Making a good clean bust." That made him feel good, just to say the words. They'd made a lot of them, gotten a lot of animals off the street. That was good, wasn't it? Then why, when Phipps said, "What else do you like besides arresting people?", why did that come off sounding tarnished, almost dirty?

"Would you like me to repeat the question?"

"Uh . . . yes."

"I said, what else do you like besides arresting people?"

Hutch sighed. "We help a lot of people."

"For example?"

"You mean you want me to be specific?"

"Why not?"

Hutch rubbed the bridge of his nose. "There was a girl kidnapped one time. We saved her."

"Commendable, I'm sure." Phipps shuffled through some papers, read something and nodded to himself. "Did you make what you call a 'good clean bust' on the kidnappers?"

Hutch glanced at Phipps, who obviously already knew the answer to the question he was asking. "No. They were killed."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hutchinson, I don't think the court could hear you. Speak up, please."

"No, we did not arrest them," he said loudly and distinctly. "They were killed during pursuit."

"Were you pursuing them?"

"No. My partner was."

"Oh, yes. The elusive Mr. Starsky." There was a pause. "Any other cases you'd like to mention?"

"This is absurd," Hutch exploded. "To try and give examples—"

"Your Honor, would you please instruct the defendant to confine himself to answering my questions?"

"Mr. Hutchinson—"

"Yes, Ma'am." Hutch wiped his palms on his trousers and leaned forward in the chair a little. As he moved, he could hear the envelope in his pocket crackle. The noise was reassuring.

"This isn't the first time you've been accused of murder, is it?"

"Objection!"

"Mr. Phipps—"

"Very well, I withdraw the question."

Hutch moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.

"How many people have you killed in the line of duty?"

"I don't know."

"What?"

"I said, I don't know."

"Lost track, have you?"

"Would it make you feel better if I cut a notch in my gun for everybody who died?" Hutch asked bitterly. "I'm a cop. People die. It happens."

"Yes, Mr. Hutchinson, we know. However, let's get back to the point for a moment."

"Is there a point?"

Phipps glanced at the judge, but apparently decided to let it pass. "What don't you like about your job?"

"I don't like killing people," Hutch said.

"But it happens. What else?"

"I don't like hassling with people who don't know or care very much what we're up against out there on the street."

"How do you feel about your gun?"

Hutch looked at him blankly. "What do you mean?"

"Shall I repeat the question?"

"I understood what you said, but I don't understand why you said it."

"I said it because I want to know how you feel about your gun."

"That's like asking a carpenter how he feels about his hammer."

"To the best of my knowledge, most carpenters don't kill people with their hammers. Also, they rarely take their hammers with them on what is supposed to be a vacation. Why did you have your gun with you that night?"

"I don't know. I just did."

Phipps glanced toward the jury and then looked at Hutch again. "You don' t know?"

"That's what I said. I'm just . . . I'm just used to wearing it."

"And using it, apparently." Phipps consulted his papers again. "Let's change the subject for a moment."

"Fine."

"You claim not to have any idea what happened after the car hit the barricade ."

"That's right. I was unconscious."

"No idea who killed Kimberly Wright?"

"No."

"Or what happened to the other girl?"

"No."

"Or where Starsky went?"

There was a slight pause. "No. I was unconscious."

"You have no explanation at all for what happened?"

"Only that I didn't kill her. Someone came and took my gun and shot her."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it's true, damnit!" Hutch was tired. He slumped back against the chair and wiped his hands dry again. Ahh, Starsk, he thought, you know how much I hate being in court. His hand slipped into his pocket for a moment and he touched the note. Starsky was out there cracking the case. Soon now, it would be all over. Hutch took a deep breath and looked up, his gaze clear, as he waited for the next question.

**

Starsky wondered why they'd never made another trip to Las Vegas. They'd always planned to. But something always seemed to come up and their big weekend never materialized. So now he was back, but nothing was the way he'd planned. For one thing, he was alone. He was also tired and hungry. He got a motel room downtown and tried a shower instead of a nap. Didn't help much. Next he went over to the cafe for a heavy dose of caffeine. As he ate and gulped coffee, he studied a map of the city.

A wall of heat hit him as he emerged from the building and walked across the parking lot to his car. The small gun in his pocket pressed against his side. He felt as if he were running on pure adrenalin. By the time this whole thing is wrapped up, he thought as he got into the car, I'm gonna need three days sleep.

The houses on the street weren't expensive, but most of them were well kept. Several children played soccer in the middle of the street. Starsky parked about half a block from the house he was interested in and settled back to watch. For an hour nothing happened. It was just another stake-out, like so many he'd been on. Except that it wouldn't have been any fun to practice his card tricks when Hutch wasn't around to get annoyed. Besides, he didn't have any cards. He slouched in the seat, staring at the house and wondering how things were going in court.

Poor Hutch, Starsky thought. He hates going to court even worse than I do. And that's kinda funny, him being so . . . smooth and all. You'd think he could handle a simple thing like court. But put him on the stand and he starts to stumble over his words. Starsky remembered an article he'd read somewhere—Reader's Digest?—about people sending thoughts to one another over long distances. Hang in there, babe, he transmitted. Hang in there, cause we're gonna beat the bastards. We're gonna wipe 'em out.

When another thirty minutes had passed with no sign of activity around the house, Starsky got out of the car and walked casually up the sidewalk. He went to the front door and knocked, waited a moment, and then knocked again. There was no answer. He glanced up and down the street before strolling around the corner of the house to the back door. Not unexpectedly, it was locked. He gripped the knob, braced himself against the flimsy frame, and pushed. The latch gave and he was in.

The house was empty. Not just temporarily vacated, as if the occupants had just gone out to do a little shopping or to work for the day. No, this house had been abandoned. It was hard to know how he could be so sure of that. The place was full of furniture and all the accouterments of daily life. There were even clean dishes in the Rubbermaid drainer. But he was certain that Lucas or whoever else had been living here was gone. It was discouraging. Starsky wandered through the silent rooms a couple of times, trying to see if maybe the departed had left a clue. Like maybe a roadmap with their route and destination clearly marked. Or something. But there wasn't anything.

Well, almost nothing. He peered into the wastebasket in the bedroom and found something. Nothing that would be any help in finding Lucas, but at least it was confirmation, if he needed it, that he was on the right track. He reached down and pulled up a crumpled photo. It was a black-and-white snapshot of Maura Kennedy and himself, dressed in pirate hats, grinning drunkenly at the camera. He stared at himself in the photo.

Or was it him at all? He didn't feel like the same man any more. Too much had happened. And he knew that even if things turned out okay—when things turned out okay, he amended quickly—even then, he'd never be able to go back to what he had been.

"I'm tired," he whispered to the empty room. "So damned tired." And it wasn't the kind of weariness that could be cured by three days or three weeks sleep, either. This went too deep. His life could never be the same again. It was a very frightening thought. What would he do?

He shrugged it off. Not now. Later. Time enough to deal with all that later. The only important thing right now was to get Hutch out of jail. Then he could think about the future. They would think about it together. After all, they could always don sequined masks and make porno flicks. He smiled humorlessly.

He tore the picture in half, shoving the part with Maura on it into his pocket and dropping the rest back into the wastebasket, then made one more tour of the house. Nothing else. He went out through the back door and saw a woman watching him from the next lawn. After pretending to lock the door, he strolled over. She was wearing a halter top and shorts that showed her stretch marks and there was a garden trowel in one hand.

"Afternoon," Starsky said.

"Hello. Are you going to buy the house?"

"Is it for sale?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. I just figured."

"When did they leave?"

"The Mahoneys? Two days ago. I saw them putting suitcases and stuff in the car, so I figured they were moving out. She said they moved around a lot, because of his job."

"Any idea where they were going?"

"No." She looked at him again. "I guess you're not interested in the house."

"Actually, I'm more interested in the people."

"I didn't know them very well," she said quickly. "Just to say hello and good-bye to mostly."

"I see." They stood there for a moment, both looking at the empty house as if there was some message in its very structure that would enlighten them, if only they could decipher it.

"Nothing you can tell me at all?" he asked.

"She once said something about San Francisco."

"Oh, yeah?"

"That's all, really. She was quiet-like, you know? Dreamy. I sort of got the idea she was scared of him."

"Scared?"

"More like intimidated, maybe. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah."

"Are they in trouble?"

"I just want to talk to her is all. Okay, thanks." He nodded good-bye.

Starsky got behind the wheel of the car and sat there. So here he was again. Nowhere. He wondered if there was any mention in the Guinness Book of World Records for detectives foundering on cases. Or ex-cops going down for the third time.

"Shit," he said, starting the car. He felt like he'd been dog-paddling for at least five years. That should rate at least a footnote.

**

Illo of Bearded Starsky sitting with right hand in foreground

He could sit in the motel room and look down on all the people gathered around the pool. Everybody already had a tan, but they were all soaking up more sun like a parched man soaked up water. Idly, he rated the figures of the females and discovered a couple of sevens, but none higher. A mediocre collection, at best. Well, he decided after a few minutes, enough fun and cheap thrills. Time to get back to work. Fine. The only problem was, he didn't know what the hell to do next. Well, it was said that citizens in trouble could always turn to the local police. It was worth a shot.

The desk sergeant studied Arnie Schwartz's I.D. with well-concealed curiosity. It looked like the man didn't care at all that he was in the presence of a real live private eye from Los Angeles. In fact, he even looked a little bored. He tossed the wallet back across the desk. "So?"

"I need some information about a guy named Lucas Mahoney."

"Uh-huh. What for?"

It was easy to see why this guy was on the desk; he obviously had a quick grasp of any situation. "Because I want some answers. In relation to a murder case I'm investigating."

"Murder?"

"Right. As in dead."

It took a few more minutes before he was directed to the desk of one Sergeant Galenta, who sat behind a desk piled high with files. Galenta almost glanced up as Starsky sat down. "Yeah?"

He didn't bother to pull out the I.D. again.

"My name is Schwartz," he said laconically. "What can you tell me about Lucas Mahoney?"

Galenta rummaged through the papers on the desk and Starsky thought hopefully that he was going to emerge with a plump file that would give him all kinds of facts about Mahoney, including even his current address. In a minute Galenta straightened, a half-eaten doughnut clutched in his fist. Starsky sighed.

"Mahoney?" Galenta mumbled around a bite of doughnut.

"That's what I said."

"I know him."

It must be the sun in Vegas, Starsky decided. Fried their brains. He stopped being Arnie Schwartz for a moment and reverted to Sergeant Dave Starsky. "Listen, Galenta," he said tightly, "I'm trying to find out who murdered a young woman. If I don't find out, then an innocent man is going to take the fall. That innocent man happens to be a very, very good friend of mine and I have no intention of letting him rot in jail. Tell me about Mahoney." He sat back, glaring at Galenta.

The detective looked at him and the shifting of mental gears could be read in the man's black eyes.

"Okay, Schwartz," he said, reaching into a drawer. This time, he emerged with a file folder. "Mahoney. A small-time punk. Mostly fraud and bunco. Spent some time in Q on a rape charge. Paroled."

"Anything to connect him with a man named Owen Wright?"

"Wright?" Galenta was quiet for a moment and Starsky decided that maybe the man wasn't as dumb as he'd thought. "This have something to do with the murder of Wright's daughter? The one they nabbed the cop for?"

"That's right."

Galenta was still looking at the file, not at Starsky. "I talked to him—Hutchinson—a couple of times on the phone, back when he was on the force. He seemed like an all right guy."

"He is an all right guy."

"This is a bum rap?"

"Yes."

"I hear his partner disappeared. They find him yet?" Now Galenta was staring at Starsky.

Starsky stared right back at him. "No."

Galenta only nodded. "I can't find Wright's name in here anywhere," he said finally. "But I know Mahoney has a lot of ties in California."

"I went to a local address from the DMV but he was gone."

"Yeah? Doesn't surprise me. We've been keeping an eye on him and he gets itchy."

"Rumor has it he went to Frisco. That make sense?"

Galenta nodded again. "Yeah. He's done some work there for a man named Leroux. Jerome Leroux," he repeated, as Starsky pulled out his notebook and wrote it down. "A shady lawyer. He has an office in the Kelly Building."

"Okay. The name Maura Kennedy mean anything? Or Maura Gonzalez?"

"No. Should it?"

"She's living with him, I think."

"Could be." Galenta closed the file and shoved it back into the desk. "Afraid that's all I have that might help."

"I appreciate it." He put the notebook away and got to his feet wearily. It took a lot of effort just to stand. "So long."

"Hey, Schwartz," Galenta said.

"Yeah?"

"Good luck. Hope you get Hutchinson off."

"I will." Starsky smiled and left.

The next thing he did was call Dobey. "Get me all you can on a Leroux, Jerome in San Francisco," he ordered. "And fast."

"All right. What's his connection?"

"Damned if I know. Just something I'm checking on. How'd it go today?"

There was a pause. "All right."

"Just all right?"

"Hutch did his best. Phipps was pretty rough on him."

"Damnit. Okay, look, I gotta figure my next move. When do you think you can get back to me on Leroux?"

"Hell, Starsky, I don't know. I'll get it."

"Well, look, I'll call you then, okay?" They hung up a few minutes later and Starsky wandered over to the window. The only ones left in the pool now were a couple of kids playing some obscure game with a balloon and a water pistol. The last thing he felt like doing was climbing back into the car and driving to San Francisco, but he didn't seem to have much choice. Hell. He walked back to the bed and stretched out. A nap first. God, he thought, I'm getting sick of motel rooms. Sick of everything. He started to make a mental list of all the misfortunes he was getting tired of, but he only got as far as lumpy mattresses before he was asleep.

**

Hutch walked down the hall to take the phone call. "Hello?" he said tentatively.

"Hi, it's me. Arnie Schwartz."

Obviously Starsky had been warned about the bugged phone. "Hi, Arnie."

"How's it going, boy?"

"Trial's over."

There was a pause. "All over?"

"Closing statements tomorrow." Hutch leaned against the wall. "Kramer's real optimistic."

"Is he?"

"Yeah. Except for all those times he keeps mentioning possible grounds for appeal. That makes me a little nervous."

"For sure."

"How's it going on your end?"

"Hey, great. I know who did it. Details later."

"You know, really?"

"Yeah. I'm going to Frisco. Think my man is there."

Hutch gave a short laugh. "Tell Fisherman's Wharf hello for me, huh?" Starsky didn't say anything; he didn't laugh either. "Buddy, they're gonna convict me. I know it. I can read that jury and they're gonna find me guilty unless something happens real soon."

"I'm doing my . . . I'm trying . . . it's about to break, Hutch, really."

Hutch slapped the wall repeatedly with his open palm. "Well, something better break. But what if it doesn't? What then? And don't you start feeding me any crap about appeals. I get enough of that from Dobey and Kramer."

"I won't."

"Buddy?"

"What?"

"I don't think I can take jail much longer." He shook his head. "I can't."

"I know it's rough, Hutch."

"Rough?" He felt like laughing again. "I'll kill myself." He hadn't planned to say that; the words just came out and there was nothing he could do about it. There was a silence on the line that went on so long he thought they'd been disconnected. "Hey?" he said. "You there?"

"I'm here."

"Thought you hung up on me."

"No."

"Okay."

"I hafta hit the road."

"Yeah, all right. Thanks for calling."

"Hutch . . . ?"

He closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "All right. I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry."

"Sorry for thinking it or just sorry for saying it to me?"

"Both, I guess. Mostly sorry for saying it."

Starsky took a deep breath. "There's an old joke my Uncle Moishe used to tell me. I can't remember anything but the punch line. Something like, if you kill yourself, I'll never speak to you again."

"I never heard that joke."

"Yeah, well, Uncle Moishe was into ethnic humor."

"I guess."

"Hutch, I'm going after the guy. He's a killer. I got nothing but one shitty little gun like my grandmother might use. I got no partner to back me up. I got nothing, you understand?"

"Yes."

"I don't need something else to worry about. Something that might distract me. I mean, I could get my frigging brains blown out because I'm worrying about that stupid crack of yours."

Hutch's head was pounding. "I'm sorry." He paused, then realized that Starsky was waiting for him to say something else. "I won't do anything," he said softly. "I promise."

"Okay. I hafta go, buddy. I'll be in touch."

"Uh-huh." Hutch hung up.

Starsky sat still long enough to smoke two cigarettes, wishing that Hutch was standing there so that he could haul off and smash him one. He deserved it. Talking about killing himself. Goddamn.

What would happen if he failed and he couldn't bring this off? Then, if anything happened to Hutch, it would he his fault and his alone. He remembered reading about somebody who once broke out of a Mexican jail in a helicopter. Maybe they could try that. Not that he had a helicopter or even any idea about how to go about getting one. But that seemed a minor inconvenience. He could rent one. Then he could swoop down over the yard at Diablo and neatly pluck Hutch to safety. They could fly off to someplace they'd never he found. That sounded like a good idea. Starsky slammed to his feet. God, he thought. I'm getting punchy. Stupid idea. But he didn't discard the idea completely; he just sort of filed it in the back of his mind.

Since he hadn't had time to unpack anything, all he had to do was throw the suitcase in the back seat and take off. He kept the radio playing loudly so he wouldn't fall asleep.

**

XXIV

It was late the next afternoon when Starsky arrived at the Kelly Building to confront Jerome Leroux. Jerome, Dobey had relayed, was one of those shadowy figures existing on the underbelly of society, never quite emerging as a power, but always there somehow. He was billed, somewhat ambiguously, on the lobby directory as an investment manager. The receptionist-cum-secretary in the seventh-floor office eyed Starsky doubtfully, apparently not seeing a major investor behind the beard and ratty clothes. Nevertheless, she told Mr. Leroux that Mr. Schwartz wanted to see him.

Leroux sat behind a large desk in an office that was about as personal as the YMHA lobby. He smiled, looking like a friendly barracuda. "Yes, Mr. Schwartz?" he said when Starsky was sitting opposite him. "How may I help?"

Starsky was tired. Tired of being nice, tired of pussy-footing around.

He could feel time slipping away from him much too quickly. "I'm a private detective," he said shortly. "You know a turkey named Lucas Mahoney and I want him."

"Mahoney?" Leroux said thoughtfully. "No, that name doesn't ring a bell, but I meet so many . . . ."

He got no farther. Starsky lurched across the desk at him and closed his fingers around Leroux's collar. "Look, creep, you may have an office and a secretary and everything else you need to look respectable, but to me you're still just a punk, no better than the lowest pimp or pusher I bust on the street. I'm tired, man, you understand? Tired. I got no time to waste on you and I won't waste any. You tell me what I want to know and tell me now, or I swear to god, I'll get the information out of you myself. I hope that's clear?" Leroux, who was beginning to turn purple, nodded, and Starsky resumed his chair. "Talk to me."

"All right. I know Mahoney. What about it?"

"Where is he?"

"He lives in Vegas."

"Oh, very good. Except that he left there a few days ago."

"He could be a lot of places."

"Yeah, and one of them is Frisco."

Leroux was still rubbing his neck. "He might be in town."

"Where?"

It looked for a moment as if Leroux might defy him. Starsky moved a little in the chair and the smaller man waved a hand. "Okay, okay. He sometimes shacks up at his sister's place."

"Gimme an address."

He hesitated, but only fleetingly. No wonder the guy was still a little fish in his pond, Starsky thought contemptuously, he was a coward. Leroux scribbled an address on a slip of paper and shoved it toward him. "Is that all?" he asked bitterly.

"Yeah. Unless I need more and if I do, I'll be back." Starsky got up and sauntered toward the door. His hand on the knob, he paused. "Oh, there is one more thing."

"What?"

"I'd like my little visit to be a surprise. More fun that way. So I wouldn't like to find out that you tipped him off. Understood?"

Leroux nodded.

The address Starsky had was in a classier neighborhood than he would have imagined. There was even a doorman at the building. The old man in his royal blue and gold uniform might have been an annoyance, but luckily he became engrossed in helping a very fat woman out of a taxi, meanwhile trying to juggle her shopping bags and an irate poodle on a leash. Starsky slipped in through the front door, quickly scanned the mailboxes, and was in the elevator before the doorman could extricate himself.

It took two rings before the door was opened. Under other circumstances the woman standing there would have been well worth waiting for. Dressed in gold lame pajamas, with a mound of shiny black hair piled on top of her head, she was either very rich or very expensive. Maybe both. "Kara Mahoney?"

"That's me."

"I'm looking for your brother."

Her red lips thinned a little. "You a pig? Why don't you jerks lay off Lucas? Every time somebody gets his pocket picked, Lucas takes a fall."

She was trying to shut the door, but his foot was in the way. "This isn't about a pocket picking and I'm not a pig. I only want to see Lucas."

"He's not here," she said sullenly.

"Then where?"

"Someplace off with that bitch."

"Maura?"

"Maura? Yeah, that used to be her name. Not anymore. She changed it." Starsky pulled the picture out of his pocket. "That her?"

"Yeah. 'Cept her hair isn't blond anymore."

"It's not?"

"No. It's sort of a reddish-brown."

"What's she calling herself now?"

"Victoria. How's that? Victoria. Acts like the Queen of the May or something. And Lucas is eating out of her hand. God, men." Her tone was filled with contempt. "Show them a hot little piece and they're all alike, even my brother. He'd jump off a bridge if she asked him to."

Starsky replaced the picture. "Or do anything else she asked, right?"

She clammed up. "What's this about anyway?"

"You have any idea where they are?"

"No." She nibbled on her thumbnail for a moment. "The bitch in trouble, is she?"

It was an angle that might prove helpful, so he played it. "Could be. Could be she's in real big trouble."

That pleased her. "If Lucas could get clear of her, he might be able to make something of himself. He had a nice little business once, you know? Car rental. But he got a lot of bad breaks and lost it."

"Uh-huh." Starsky had long ago gotten his fill of poor dumb guys who got a lot of bad breaks.

"Well, if it's mostly her you want . . . ?"

"It is," he lied. "Just give an address, please."

She was quiet for a second, then mumbled an address. "It's about ten miles east of town," she added.

"Thanks. You, ahh, won't tell her I'm coming, will you?"

Kara snorted. "I wouldn't tell her the time of day."

Starsky grinned and headed for the elevator. This case got funnier every step of the way. Why was Maura Kennedy Gonzalez changing her name and her hair color? Until this point, he'd been thinking of her only as a probable witness. Was it possible she was more than that? The name Victoria tugged at his memory. It seemed like there was something he should connect with the name, but his groggy brain couldn't put it together.

He still hadn't made the connection by the time he arrived at the address. He parked and got out, palming his gun, and went to the front door. No one answered his knock, but that didn't surprise him much. Seemed like he'd been knocking on a lot of doors lately and nobody had been answering. He walked back to his car and slouched in the seat. Time to wait again. So he waited.

**

Dobey read the newspaper while Kramer mulled over his notes, chewing on a pencil that had seen better days. Hutch just sat. Somebody had given him a deck of cards and he started a game of solitaire, but his mind wasn't on it and the game just sort of dwindled off. "The longer the jury takes, the better for us, right?" he asked Kramer at one point.

The lawyer looked up and took the pencil out of his mouth. "That's what some people think. Some think it's the other way around. I don't think it matters very much at all."

"Well, that's encouraging," Hutch muttered. He tapped the tabletop for a moment. "Maybe you should check and see if there's a message from Starsk. He might be trying to reach us."

"I left word," Dobey said without looking up from the paper. "If there's any news, we'll get it."

"He should have let us know by now. Something."

"If we haven't heard anything, Hutch, it's probably because there's nothing for him to tell us."

Hutch couldn't sit still. He got up and paced the small room. "There must be something. He sounded really confident the last time we talked. Like he was just on the point of smashing the whole case wide open."

Dobey sighed and folded the paper. "You know Starsky. Sometimes he thinks with his heart and not his head. Maybe he wasn't as close as he thought ."

But Hutch shook his head. "No, he had something. He's probably on his way here now. I bet that's it, huh? He probably decided not to call, but just to come on back." He gave a self-satisfied nod and sat down again, his eyes on the door.

Kramer and Dobey exchanged a long look.

**

It was dark before anyone approached the house. A taxi pulled up in front and a man got out. He went to the door, knocked once, and when there was no answer, used a key to let himself in. Starsky watched, bemused, then got out of the car. He did a couple of deep knee bends to get the kinks out, took the gun into his hand once more, and walked up the steps. He was thoroughly fed up. He was also mad about having to spend all those hours sitting in the car, when god only knew what was going on down in San Manuel.

In view of his mood, he didn't bother to knock. He simply used his foot and all of his pent-up anger to kick the door open. He half-fell, half-charged into the room, his gun held high. "Freeze, creep!" he yelled. It felt good. Felt like he was in charge again.

The man dropped the bottle of beer he'd just opened and it broke against the floor. "What the hell—" he sputtered.

"Assume the position." The man was no novice; he knew the routine. His hands went against the wall and his feet were spread. Starsky frisked him and took a gun from his pocket. "You Lucas Mahoney?"

"No." The man laughed a little. "Hey, if it's Lucas you want, man, you got the wrong guy. My name is Eddie Kray." He glanced over his shoulder and suddenly recognized Starsky. "Hey, you ain't a cop. You're Schwartz."

"Right, Eddie. And I remember you, too. I remember you four stitches' worth. Where's Lucas?"

"I don't know."

"Don't give me any shit, creep, I'm running out of time." He had a picture in his mind of one of those egg timers, the kind with the sand in it, and the sand was running out too fast. What would happen to Hutch when the sand was gone?

He twisted Kray's arm viciously. "I want Lucas, creep."

"He's supposed to meet me here."

"Good, then we'll just wait." Starsky, keeping the gun leveled at Kray, opened the closet door and found a couple of ties draped over a hanger. He used them to tie the man to the radiator. "You just keep your mouth shut," he said. He pushed the door closed, switched off the lamp, and sat down in the corner of the darkened room. It was hard to keep still. The nervous tension that had kept him running for too many days to count was still surging through him. He tapped at his leg with one hand, holding Kray's gun in the other. It wasn't his own weapon, but it was certainly better than what he'd had. He could be effective with it. If a bad case of nerves didn't screw him up. He took a couple of deep steadying breaths.

"What are you gonna do?" Kray asked.

"I don't know yet," he replied. It was the truth.

"Look," Kray said, "could I get something straight right up front?"

"Why not?"

"I didn't have nothing to do with shooting that broad."

Starsky restrained a snort. "Yeah, sure. You were just an innocent bystander, right?"

Kray seemed relieved to be so quickly believed. "Right, you got it. It was all their doing."

Starsky wondered if all the crooks in the world got their dialogue out of the same book. "Save it for the court, why don't you?" he suggested pleasantly. "Maybe you'll be lucky and get a real jury of your peers and they'll believe everything you tell them."

"Hey, I'm not bulling you, Schwartz."

Illo Bearded Starsky holding gun

Suddenly, now that the end was so near, Starsky was tired of all the games. "My name is Starsky," he said flatly. "David Starsky."

"Oh." Kray seemed to accept as natural the fact that a man might have two names, his real one, and one he used in his business. "It was Lucas who did the shooting."

"Uh-huh."

"She talked him into it." Kray was silent for a moment. "Lucas, he ain't a bad guy, you know?"

"I'm sure he's a real sweetheart. I'll probably love him on sight." Starsky only wished the guy would shut up; he had a headache.

"No, really. He and I have been kicking around together for a long time and he's okay. Was, anyway, until he hooked up with that bitch."

Nobody seemed very fond of Maura Kennedy. Starsky tried to remember her, tried to reconstruct the few hours they'd spent together such a long time ago, but everything was shrouded in a kind of haze. He sighed and rubbed at his temples wearily. "Shut up, Kray, wouldya please?" he said.

Kray shut up.

At least an hour went by, very slowly, before Starsky heard the sound of a car stopping and then footsteps approaching the door. He braced himself to move. The front door opened. Starsky slapped one hand against the switch and flooded the room with light; at the same instant, he went into the crouch position.

"Freeze or I'll blow your fucking brains all over the room," he said, not shouting this time, but speaking in an almost-whisper instead.

The man froze.

"Sure," he said. "No hassle."

"You Lucas Mahoney?"

"Yes."

He wasn't quite the monster Starsky had pictured, but then they seldom were. Mahoney looked a lot like his sister, with the same slender body, dark hair and vaguely foreign cast in his face.

"You're under arrest," Starsky said, although he had no authority to do so. He even gave Mahoney his rights, which the man listened to with only mild interest. Starsky had to restrain himself from giving a shout of pure and unadulterated joy. So this was how it all ended, so quietly. And now Hutch would be cleared. Mahoney could be broken. Or if not him, then Kray. "We're going to be taking a little trip," he said. "Back to San Manuel." He tried that thought transference thing again. It's all over, Hutch, all done, babe, we're heading for the finish line now. He allowed himself a grin and to hell with the headache.

**

"You okay, Hutch?"

"Yeah, Cap'n, I'm fine."

"You look pale or something."

Hutch shrugged. He felt sick to his stomach. They'd been sitting in this room for hours, waiting for the jury to reach a verdict.

"S'cuse me," he said a minute later. He hurried into the adjoining bathroom and leaned over the toilet bowl as his stomach heaved. When it was over, he felt shaky. A thin sheen of sweat covered his face. He splashed cold water on it and dried with a paper towel. His reflection stared back at him from the mirror.

Okay, Starsk, he thought, where the hell are you? Man, we're about down to the wire. This is it. You trying for the fucking grandstand play? You wanta pull a Perry Mason and come busting into the courtroom at the last minute? Is that what this is all about?

He knew it wasn't, of course. Not deliberately. He practiced smiling in the mirror. It made his face look askew, not right.

Dobey looked up as he walked out of the john. "You all right?"

"Yes," he said, sitting down. "It takes a while to drive from Frisco," he said, although no one had asked.

"Hutch," Dobey began.

"Don't say anything, Cap'n. He'll get here. He said he knew who he was after. It was only a matter of wrapping it all up. Don't you remember how Starsky is when he's getting close?" Hutch turned to Kramer, who had finally put away his notes and pencils and was, like them, just waiting. "I mean, he's the most tenacious bastard I ever saw, Sam." Kramer only nodded. "I remember when we were trying to break that drug case in the state hospital and I wanted to pull the plug on the whole thing, but he wouldn't let me . . . ." Hutch's voice dwindled off and he rubbed at his face. "Tenacious bastard," he murmured more to himself than to the others.

A deputy stuck his head in. "Jury's done," he said shortly.

"Done? You mean finished for the night?" Kramer asked.

"Verdict's in."

The three of them stood, not looking at each other as they filed out and went into the courtroom. All right, babe, Hutch thought, glory time. Pull your fucking hero act and get your ass in here. Please, babe . . . .

The judge came in, followed by the jury looking tired and grim. At the clerk's order, the Foreman stood. "Have the jury agreed upon a verdict?"

"Yes, we have."

Kramer stood and after a moment, Hutch got to his feet as well.

"As to the indictment charging the defendant with murder in the second degree, how do you find, guilty or not guilty?"

Hutch sighed, glancing over his shoulder at the door. The foreman glanced toward the defense table and then away quickly. "We find the defendant guilty as charged."

Kramer cleared his throat. "Your Honor, I request that the jury be polled."

The clerk asked each member of the jury to rise and affirm the verdict and one by one, they did so, none of them looking at Hutch.

Hutch kept waiting for the door to open and Starsky to come in and put a stop to all this. He didn't hear the judge's words of thanks to the jury or even notice when the jury filed out. He watched the door as it was ordered that he be returned to Diablo Correctional Facility to await sentencing. Kramer entered a request that the sentencing be carried out as soon as possible and he went to the bench to confer on the details.

After the judge left the room, Kramer sat down again and pulled Hutch down next to him. "Ken," he said urgently, "you know this isn't the end."

Hutch shook his head. "I don't understand," he whispered. "Where is he? I thought . . . he promised . . . ." He looked at Dobey, his blue eyes fogged with vagueness. "They think I killed her. Where's Starsk? Why didn't he come like he promised?"

"I don't know, Ken," Dobey said heavily.

"We're going to appeal, Ken. Right after the sentencing, I'll file."

Hutch stared at him blankly. "What? Oh. It doesn't matter. I'm too tired to think about that right now. I only want to sleep." He followed the deputy from the room.

Dobey and Kramer watched him go. "So, Harold, what do you think?"

"I think," Dobey said savagely, "that I'm going to be sick."

"About the missing Starsky, I meant."

"Well . . . either the killer got to him first or . . . or he couldn't pull it off and he couldn't face coming back."

Kramer picked up his briefcase. "The hero couldn't face failing?"

"It's possible." They left the courtroom together.

**

Hutch was temporarily alone in the cell; Garcia had been paroled. He crawled into bed before the lights were out and pulled the blankets up. He was so cold.

"You promised, you bastard," he whispered. "You promised. Oh, damnit, Starsk . . . what happened?"

He closed his eyes, trying to force the oblivion of sleep to submerge him. Maybe if he was lucky, he'd never wake up.

**

Afterwards, he could never quite reconstruct what had happened. He remembered pointing the gun at Mahoney. Remembered feeling so damned good about it. Remembered thinking that it was all over at last and now Hutch would be free and . . . and that was all he remembered.

When he woke up, he'd taken Kray's place tied to the radiator and the late afternoon sun was warming the room. He'd been out for hours. His head was throbbing and there was a warm wetness that probably meant his stitches had been ripped open again. Kray, Lucas, and Maura or whatever she was calling herself now, were sitting around the room eating carry-out hamburgers and ignoring him.

"I guess," he said after the room stopped spinning so much, "I guess that this is the time for me to ask what happened?"

"I like you," Lucas said cheerfully. "You're a real funny guy. Even if your name isn't Schwartz like you told me before."

"I like you all, too. It's been a lot of fun chasing you around the country."

Maura giggled. "Poor Dave." She looked different with her hair cut short and dyed auburn.

"You know what, though? I would appreciate it if you folks would stop using my head as a target. Now that I'm not on the force anymore, my medical coverage has been cancelled and this could start to get expensive."

"You should just quit sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong," Kray said, waving a French fry to make his point.

"You should have killed him the first time you had a chance," Maura said. "Then he wouldn't have caused us all this trouble."

"Hey, sweetheart, what'd I ever do to you?" Starsky asked.

She didn't answer him. "Turn on the TV, Lucas. It's time for the news." There was a small black and white set in one corner of the room and Lucas fiddled with the controls until he had a pretty good picture. They listened as the anchorman talked about SALT, a teachers' strike, and the president. "A local trial came to an end late last night," he said finally.

Maura leaned forward. "Shh," she said, although nobody was making any noise.

"The jury found former Los Angeles police officer Kenneth Hutchinson guilty of second degree murder in the killing of Kimberly Wright, daughter of businessman Owen Wright." As the newsman spoke, they rolled a film taken in the courtroom. Hutch's face filled the screen. Starsky stopped listening and just stared at his partner, scared by the expression in Hutch's eyes. There was a peculiarly lifeless look in his gaze.

"I'll kill myself." He heard Hutch's voice saying the words again. Starsky strained against the ties holding him to the radiator. "Damn you all," he said hoarsely. "Why are you doing this to him?"

Maura got up from the chair and moved around the room. "We don't care about him, Dave. He was just convenient. We were waiting for the opportunity and he provided it. You might say he's going to jail because he was in the right place at the wrong time. Wrong time for him, that is."

"Maura—"

"That's not my same. My name is Victoria."

"You change names like I change socks."

She stopped in front of the mirror and smoothed her hair almost lovingly. "My true name is Victoria Wright," she said.

Now he remembered why the name Victoria has sounded familiar. It was the name of the first Wright daughter, the one they called Torrie, who'd been kidnapped as an infant and never found. "Is that your name?" he asked.

"Yes." Lucas and Kray were watching her warily. She tossed her head and struck a pose. "Now it all belongs to me, don't you see? Now that Kimberly is dead, I can go home to Momma and Poppa and take my true place." She smiled sweetly. "I must go pack now."

Starsky looked at Lucas. "Is she for real?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. It all started as a . . . a put-on, you know? But I think she really believes it now."

Kray crumpled a paper sack and threw it across the room. "She's a nutcase," he said flatly. "I been telling you that all along, Luke. The broad is a nutcase and we're all gonna take a fall for this."

"No, man, how can we? The cop just took the fall. The case is over and done with. Nothing to do now but get her into the Wright house. Pretty soon, we'll be sitting on easy street."

"Oh, yeah?" Kray laughed. "Man, you been talking to me about easy street since we were fourteen years old and we are still sitting in a dump eating cheap hamburgers."

"Not for long," Lucas insisted.

"I hate to put a damper on all this," Starsky said, "but what about me?"

"Yeah," Lucas said. "What about you?"

"I could just promise to go away and forget the whole thing."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Sure, why not? I promise to go away and forget the whole thing. So why don't you just untie me and I'll be on my way?"

Lucas just smiled. "And what about Hutchinson? You were all hot to save him before. Don't you care no more?"

"I tried my best, didn't I? Hell, am I supposed to get myself killed over it? I mean, a partner is one thing, but getting dead is something else."

"You must think my mother raised nothing but fools," Lucas said.

Starsky shrugged.

"We'll take care of you. Most everybody thinks you're dead already, so when they find your body, they won't be too surprised."

Kray upset a bottle of beer and let it spill. "For all our lives, Luke, we got by without killing nobody. All of a sudden, you get tied up with this bitch and we already killed one and now we're going for two?"

"There isn't anything we can do about it, Eddie. He's the last loose end."

Starsky slumped hack against the radiator. A loose end, huh? That was a helluva way to end his life. A loose end for a couple of punks. Well, at least when they found his body, Hutch would know why he hadn't delivered on his promise. Oh, yeah, he thought bitterly. That should be a great comfort to Hutch. He listened to Lucas and Kray talk, without hearing what they were saying. Vaguely, he was aware that they were leaving, telling Maura they'd be back later, leaving a gun in case Starsky "got any ideas."

Not until they were gone and he was alone in the room did Starsky straighten. His eyes scanned the room and finally came to rest on the beer bottle Kray had dropped when he'd burst in. Some of the pieces lay just beyond his feet. He slipped down as far as he could and angled his foot; his toes touched a large shard.

Praying that Maura took a long time over her packing, he wriggled the foot and the leg, slowly, painfully, pushing the hunk of glass closer. It seemed to take years, but finally his fingers could grasp it and he began to saw away at the ties that held him bound. He could feel the sharp edge scrape against the tips of his fingers and against his wrists, but he didn't stop long enough for the pain to reach his brain. Finally one end of the tie snapped and then the other. He was free.

Still holding the piece of glass between his fingers, he tiptoed up the stairs. He could hear Maura singing softly to herself as she moved around the bedroom. He waited until she moved past the doorway again and then he stepped up, circling her neck with one arm and holding the razor-sharp edge against her throat. "Game's over, honey," he whispered.

She sagged against him.

"Don't kill me," she said. "Please. I don't want to die."

"Nobody wants to die. Kimberly didn't. I don't. My partner doesn't. That doesn't make you special."

"But you don't understand, I'm going to be rich now. I'm going to have it all. I won't be a nobody anymore."

He remembered the garbage dump where she'd grown up as an unwanted intruder, and knew that he should have felt some pity for her. But maybe his heart had gotten too hard. He was only feeling sorry for himself and for Hutch. There wasn't anything left over for anybody else, not anymore. "You're gonna have nothing, honey," he whispered, "except a long time in jail."

"I didn't kill her. Lucas did. He did it, not me."

"Maybe he pulled the trigger, but you killed Kimberly Wright."

"No, no, he did it, he did it!"

"Shut up." He moved to the bed and picked up Kray's gun. "We're going down the stairs and if you try anything, I'll blow your frigging head off. Understand?"

She nodded.

They made it down the stairs and were halfway across the living room when the door opened and Lucas and Kray came in.

"What—?" Lucas lunged forward a little, pulling a gun at the same moment.

"Kill him!" Maura screamed, jerking away. "Kill him!"

A shot exploded from the gun Starsky held. There was one split second of total silence and then Lucas, looking vaguely surprised, toppled over and hit the floor. Kray, in the act of going for Lucas's fallen gun, froze. "Don't shoot me," he said.

"Just stay still and I won't."

Kray had no fight left in him. "Can I check Luke?" he asked softly.

Starsky nodded. "Yeah. Slide the gun away first."

The revolver slid across the floor. Kray reached Lucas and gently turned him over.

Maura was leaning against the wall. "Listen," she said quickly, "my daddy is real rich and he'll pay you a lot of money if you just take me home and forget all this."

"He's dead," Kray said. He looked up, not at Starsky, but at Maura. "Are you satisfied, you bitch? Luke is dead. You killed him. You killed Luke."

"My daddy will pay you, too."

Starsky grabbed some more ties from the closet. "Put her hands behind her back. Make 'em tight." She didn't like Kray touching her, but he brutally bound her as Starsky had directed. When he was finished, Starsky tied Kray in the same way. Finally, he tied the two of them together and rested against the wall.

"What happens now?" Kray asked.

"Now we get into the car and go to San Manuel. And you both better hope that nothing has happened to my partner or I'll take care of you myself and screw the system."

Leaving Lucas's body where it was, they walked out of the house. Starsky shoved the two of them into the back seat and got behind the wheel. His mind was so numb that the only clear thought he had was that he must drive like hell to the courthouse and make them let Hutch go. Maura was crying, but Kray was huddled silently in the corner of the seat. Starsky only hoped that it wasn't too late. The expression in Hutch's eyes when the guilty verdict was announced haunted Starsky throughout the night.

**

He gave a lot of thought to composing a suicide note. Dumb, he knew, but it helped him get through the night. Well, maybe it wasn't so much dumb as it was premature. There was that promise he'd made to Starsk. As long as that was hanging over him, he was pretty much bound to go on living. The promise would be binding until further notice.

Dobey and Kramer walked with him into the courtroom for the pre-sentence hearing. Many of the observers had apparently lost interest now that the verdict was in, but the press was still there, and a few of the reporters that had been there since the beginning gave him friendly nods. He sat at the defense table, his hands folded. Kramer was talking to him and he kept nodding, pretending to listen, but his mind was someplace else. Where, he didn't really know. He was wondering, absently, how far he would make it if he just jumped up and started running. It might work, at that. Anyway, maybe it was time for him to take his fate hack into his own hands again.

Idly, he measured the distance between the table and the door.

**

Illo Bearded Starsky, v neck shirt, bowed head

He parked behind the courthouse and leaned against the steering wheel for a moment to consider his next move. There were probably any number of rational, correct ways to handle this situation. But he decided that it was too late for any of those. Where had following the rules got Hutch? He got out of the car and opened the back door.

"Come on." Moving slowly, they did as he ordered. "We're going in," he said. "Somebody will probably try to stop us, but I won't be stopped. I'll do whatever I have to. Understand?"

Not waiting for an answer, he pushed them ahead of him, squinting a little into the glaring sun.

They were in the hallway and halfway to the courtroom before they were even noticed. A passing deputy stopped to look. "Hey, there," he said rather uncertainly.

Starsky knew what they must look like—two people tied together, being shoved along by a man covered in dirt and sweat and blood. He grimaced at the officer. "We gotta go in," he muttered, flashing the P.I. license.

"Yeah?" It looked for one moment as if he might simply let them go in. But then his hand crept toward his holster. "Just hold it," he said.

Starsky pulled the gun out and placed the barrel against Maura's head. "We're going in." He spoke quietly.

More cops began to gather and Starsky pushed Maura and Kray along more quickly. She began to pull against him. "Don't let him kill me!" she screamed at the deputy. "Please! "

"Shut up!" Starsky yelled. "We're going in. I don't want to hurt anybody, but I'm going in there! Stay back."

There was a lot of yelling now. He kept his eyes on the door at the end of the corridor and he saw Collins take up a position next to the door. "Schwartz," he said calmly, "what the hell are you doing?"

They stopped a few feet short of the door.

"My name is David Starsky," he said. "I have new evidence . . . have to get in there . . . damnit, Collins, let me through. They killed her, don't you understand? They did it, not Hutch."

"Are you crazy?"

"Maybe," Starsky said, giving up. He shoved Kray and Maura brutally, giving a wordless roar of frustration.

**

At first, everyone tried to ignore the noise in the hallway, but it got louder and louder, until finally the judge looked up in aggravation. "Will someone please see what's going on?"

Hutch heard the yell and recognized Starsky's voice. He jumped to his feet. "That's him," he whispered. "It's my partner."

A deputy moved quickly to stand next to him.

The courtroom door burst open and a man and woman stumbled in, followed by a bearded, bloodied madman holding a gun. Near silence reigned in the room, broken only by the harsh gasps of Starsky's breathing.

Hutch was still standing, watching, unmoving.

Starsky leaned against the wall, still holding the gun. He wiped at his sweaty face. His gaze sought Hutch, found him, and the eyes smiled a little. "Your Honor," he said loudly, "these people killed Kimberly Wright."

Maura tried to run forward, but was jerked up short by the tie . "She had it all," she said reasonably. "She had it all and it should have been mine. You can see that, can't you?" She appealed to the judge, to the watching press. "It was only right that she should die. Everyone can see that, can't you?"

The judge leaned forward. "Do not say anything more, young lady. Anything you say can be considered incriminating."

Kray, who had been watching Maura blankly, now turned a look of disbelief upon the judge. "She's crazy! Can't you see that? She made Luke kill the broad. Gonna be rich, he told me. Gonna be on easy street. She filled his head with a lot of promises and what did it get him? Nothing but a chest full of lead. It's all her fault. Luke pulled the trigger, but she's the one with blood on her hands. And maybe me, because I didn't stop it."

Hutch kept staring at Starsky, feeling like everything was swirling around him in slow motion. Vaguely, he was aware of Kramer and Phipps approaching the bench. Dobey was talking softly and quickly into his ear and Hutch kept nodding, not hearing a word he was saying.

Crowded as the room was, Hutch felt like Starsky and he were alone, isolated from the activity of the others. They watched one another carefully, almost warily. Everything that was going on acted as a barrier between them, keeping them apart. But that was good in a way, because it gave them time. Time to let the emotions cool a little, to step back a few paces from what was happening and study it.

On the surface, Starsky seemed oblivious to everything. He leaned one shoulder against the wall, looking casual and deadly. Occasionally, he would give an enigmatic half-smile.

After nearly fifteen minutes the judge gaveled order back into the room. Everyone sat down except Starsky, his prisoners, his guards, and Hutch.

"This is most . . . extraordinary," the judge said after a moment. "After conferring with the attorneys for both sides, it has been decided that any further activity on sentencing will be set aside until this entire matter can he cleared up." She paused, looking at Hutch. "Additionally, the bench has decided that the prisoner will be released upon his own recognizance until the matter is resolved."

Hutch only half-heard. "What? What'd she say?"

"You're out," Dobey said. "Free."

He shook his head. It didn't make any sense. As soon as the judge had left the room everyone else moved. The reporters surged toward Hutch. Deputies disarmed an agreeable Starsky, taking Kray and Maura into custody. It all seemed, to Hutch, like part of a dream. He needed a piece of reality that he could grab onto and hold. Reporters were shouting questions at him, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. He looked around vaguely and saw Starsky pushing his way through the crowd. When the others wouldn't get out of his way, Starsky gave an impatient gesture and made a vaulting leap over the railing, reaching Hutch a moment later.

"Thank you," Hutch whispered.

Starsky understood. He didn't dismiss the words or the emotion behind them, didn't brush off the conventional expression of gratitude as unnecessary. "You're welcome," he said almost formally. An instant later, he grabbed Hutch with both arms and gave him a tight hug.

Hutch held onto Starsky, held onto that fragment of reality, held on for dear life, ignoring the reporters, ignoring everything but the moment. Almost simultaneously, they took deep breaths and pulled away, each keeping an arm around the other. They faced the reporters.

"Gentlemen," Hutch said loudly, "this is my partner."

The questions started again and he tried to answer, speaking softly, but clearly. It was all still a dream. Nothing seemed real except for the firm pressure of Starsky's arm around his shoulders. But that was all he needed. Hutch couldn't seem to stop smiling.

**

Illo S&H arms over each other's shoulders grinning

XXV

It was a clear night and the whole city seemed aglow with lights. He could sit on the balcony of this hillside house and watch the line of traffic move along Hollywood Boulevard. It all looked very peaceful from up here, but he knew that the closer one got, the less beautiful it would all seem. Those glowing circles of light camouflaged all the violence and despair that the city held. All the nights he'd spent roaming that place seemed to have evolved into one long vista of misery. Death waited down there, waiting to leap when least expected, disguised in a hundred different ways. The narrow line of wilderness that stood between them and the city served as a fragile harrier against the horror.

He rubbed absently at one cheek, still not quite used to not having the beard. "Hey," he said languidly.

"What?" Hutch's voice came from a dark corner on the other side of the patio.

"You getting hungry?"

"I don't know. You?"

Starsky shrugged. He patted at his pockets helplessly.

"You quit, remember?" Hutch said.

"I'm trying to quit," he corrected. "There's a difference."

"You're doing great. I'm proud of you."

Starsky snorted and patted his pockets again. "What did Dobey say when you talked to him before?"

"That he'd call back sometime tonight."

"Terrific." Starsky got up and began to pace the patio. He watched the flashing lights of a police car far below. The past two weeks had been very strange. Once it was all over in San Manuel, it had dawned that neither of them had a home anymore. Edith Dobey scurried about and managed to rent this place temporarily. So they had been sitting on top of the world for fourteen days now, watching it all pass beneath them. "Hutch?"

"What?"

"What's the scariest thing that ever happened to you?" It was part of the game they kept playing—a sort of macabre Twenty Questions, in which they poked and probed at the edges of their wounds.

Not to answer would be cheating. "When I was seven years old," Hutch's voice said from the blackness, "I was playing in my grandfather's barn and all of a sudden I saw this rat, must have been two feet long, and it had a crazy look in its eyes. Rabid, I guess. It was standing just a couple of feet from me. I just sat there in the hay and looked at it. That was the first time I ever looked into a pair of eyes that wanted to kill me."

Starsky shivered a little in the evening air. "What happened?"

"My uncle killed it with a shovel. Beat it to death. He hated rats, my uncle did, worse than anything. He just kept hitting it and hitting it, until there was nothing left except . . . ." He left it unfinished. "I guess he went a little crazy."

Starsky stopped at the small table and added some more white wine to his glass. "I can understand how he felt," he said, shoving the cork back into the bottle. "I've felt the same way."

"When?" That was how the game kept going, one question leading to another, as they peeled away the layers of protective coloring built up over the years. No fair not answering or answering lightly.

"When?" Starsky was silent for a moment, swirling the wine in the glass. "A couple times, I guess. The first time was in Vietnam. Before we met. A little girl got blown up on the street one day by a bicycle bomb. There wasn't enough left of her to put in a small box. If I coulda got my hands on whoever did that . . . I would've been like your uncle." He sipped the wine. "When Terri died, just for a minute. When you got blasted through the store front that time and I thought you were dead." He shrugged. "When I came into the courtroom in San Manuel. I think I would've killed anybody who seriously tried to stop me."

"There were a couple of times I thought you weren't going to come through for me," Hutch said suddenly. The confession floated around the patio for a couple of minutes. He was grateful that his face was hidden in the darkness. Absolution was contained in a fleeting, twisted grin. "What scares you the most right now?" Hutch asked after a moment.

"Nothing."

"What?"

"I mean it," Starsky said flatly. "Nothing. Anything that would happen now, I'd more or less expect. Something can only scare you when it's unknown. What could happen? A maniac could be hiding in those trees, just waiting for a chance to blow my frigging head off." He turned around and faced the night, as if to give the mythical madman a better target. "Or I guess there could be an earthquake, maybe the biggie they keep talking about, and we'd both go sliding into the sea. Nothing I can do about it. If I know one thing now, I know that we're not in charge. Things just happen. Like the fact that everything that just happened came about because of a stupid broken brakeline. If the car hadn't been defective . . . ." He faced Hutch again. "So? What should I be afraid of?"

"How about being alone?"

"I've been alone, man. It sucks. But it doesn't scare me."

"Why not?"

"Because now I know that there are only two options. Either I cope or I cash in my chips. Big deal."

Hutch finished his wine and stood. He walked out of the darkness to the circle of light by the table and poured some more of the golden white liquid into his glass. "You gave me hell for talking about suicide and here you are doing the same thing."

"That's different."

"Why?"

"Well, shit, man." The anger wasn't real; the emotion was. "I was still out there operating. You weren't just giving up on yourself. You were giving up on me. On us. That's not allowed. When I talk about cashing in my chips, that assumes certain things."

"Such as?"

Illo of clean shaven S&H side by side, Hutch clutching his jacket closed

"Such as that I got no partner out there hustling his ass off to save me."

They watched the traffic for almost five minutes before Hutch broke the silence. "Dobey's gonna be calling back anytime. He wants to know what we're going to do."

Starsky shrugged. "To hell with it."

"He deserves an answer, Starsk. Not the force; we don't owe them anything. But Dobey deserves an answer."

"Yeah, I know." Starsky's voice sounded tired. "Hey," he said.

"What?"

"How about taking a walk?"

"Where?"

"Let's walk all the way down the mountain. We can grab a burger someplace and then come back."

"That's a long walk."

"Yeah." Starsky finished the wine in a gulp.

Hutch smiled faintly. "Okay." He looked the patio door and they started down the stone steps dug into the side of the hill. They hadn't gone more than a few feet when the phone inside the house began to ring shrilly. "That's Dobey," Hutch said unnecessarily.

"I guess." Starsky patted at his pockets again, but there were still no cigarettes there.

"What are we going to do?"

Starsky didn't answer for a moment. His face was turned into the shadows and Hutch couldn't see his expression. "Let it ring," he said shortly. "He'll call back."

"Starsk . . . ?"

He looked at Hutch then, his eyes dark. "Later, Hutch," he said. He turned and moved down the steps more quickly.

Hutch glanced back toward the house once more, then hurried to catch up, pulling his windbreaker closed against the cool night air. Side by side they moved down the hill, moving inexorably toward the lights of the city, toward the traffic, toward the people who swarmed all over Los Angeles, making that City of Angels into a little piece of hell. Finally the sound of the ringing phone ended and the only noise left was the shuffling of their feet across the ground.

Soon even that sound was drowned out by the echo of the traffic as the noises of the city rose to greet and then submerge them.

FINI