Inside Out

by Rae, for RebelCat

"Shit," Starsky said. "There he is."

The alley was dark, but there was enough light from the street and the one remaining security lamp to be sure it was their guy. He had a huge afro for one thing. It was haloed by the lights above his head. But what clinched it was that he was white, and his hair was blonde. Not too many guys they knew of looked like that.

But then, they were staking him out in a striped tomato, not exactly a blend-into-the-woodwork vehicle, so Hutch guessed they were about even with the guy as far as camouflage went. What was encouraging was that the dipshit never even noticed them there, and went right into the building through a nearly-indistinguishable-from-its-neighbors brown metal door.

"You'd think the son of an airline pilot would have enough money for a haircut, and some decent clothes, wouldn't you?" Hutch picked up the handset and called into dispatch to report they were going in after their quarry.

"Bet he just does it to annoy his folks," Starsky said.

Hutch had already forgotten his own comment. "Who does?"

Starsky pointed at the closed door. "Him. Jamesy. Bet his father tells him to get a haircut three, four times a week." He pulled his gun, checked the clip, and reholstered. "He's a real rebel." He looked up and grinned. "You ready?"

"You think we should have asked for backup?"

"We been here for four and a half hours. No one else is here. That kid ain't gonna try to take us on."

"Okay, then. Let's go."

The building had been deserted a long time. Maybe the inhabitants had been happy people, busy with their lives, enjoying their homes, or maybe they'd been like the building: old and gaunt, unwanted. But they were long gone now. Every apartment had been tossed and looted, every window broken and boarded up, and not even transients or junkies wanted to crash there.

Hutch smelled trouble as soon as they swung in through the metal door.

"With luck, that's a dead possum," he said. "Less paperwork."

"Too big for a possum." Starsky eased up to the doorway, and peered around it into a littered apartment, gun ready, pointed downward. "Dog, maybe."

"How can you tell how big it is from the smell?" He brushed some cobwebs away from his face, and then had a panicky moment when he thought they were in his hair, too.

Starsky didn't bother to answer. Instead he said, "Uh, Hutch . . ."

There were only supposed to have been two of them: Jamesy and the guy he had helped to set up. They hadn't trusted Jamesy because, even though he'd been one of their snitches for almost a year, they knew he wasn't above selling them out. Looked like they'd been smart as far as that went, but not so smart that they hadn't avoided a classic textbook ambush. Dobey was never going to let them forget this one.

The bad guys materialized from their hiding places in the littered hallway behind them and in front of them. Hutch had an inconsequent thought about porcupines, and only much later, when it was all over, he realized that the six guys with their shotguns and semiautomatic rifles all together like that, and surrounding them the way they were, had looked to him like the inside of an inside-out porcupine. But with much scarier quills.

Porcupine Number One pointed his quill at Starsky and said, "Put your popgun on the floor and kick it to me."

Number Two said something similar to Hutch. Surely he hadn't referred to the Python as a cap pistol, surely not.

The July night suddenly got very cold, or a lot hotter, Hutch couldn't tell—he just felt odd. Starsky, in stop-motion beside him, blinked fast a couple of times and did nothing, so Hutch unlocked and put his gun down, and put his hands in the air. Starsky still didn't move, but just when Hutch started to worry that he'd misunderstood, his partner shook his head once, and put his Beretta where he'd been told.

"Got any ideas?" Starsky said.

"Nope. You?"

"I did, but I bagged it. It won't work."

"Cooperate, then?"

"Guess so."

"Your call."

"You two done?" said the biggest bad guy, the one tucking Hutch's Python possessively into his belt.

"Yeah. We're gonna surrender," Hutch said.

"Give up," Starsky said.

"Capitulate."

"Throw in the towel."

"Just put your fucking hands on your heads and kneel down," said the Number Two bad guy.

"Hey," Starsky said, and turned his head to Hutch.

"Yeah," Hutch said, and looked at his eyes. He took a breath and nodded. He went right, and Starsky went left.

The next bit was just flurry of grabs and punches. Hutch didn't know which way was up, or whether any of his pathetic attempts at offensive strikes had hit their marks, or whether any of the blows to his gut had broken a rib or burst an internal organ, or, eventually, where he even was. Worse, much worse, he didn't know where Starsky was or how much of the same thing was happening to him. He tried to lift his head to look, and made one last attempt to get out of the grasping hands, but all that happened was another gut punch, and another fast jab to the side of his head, and he went down like a dropped jacket.

There hadn't been much point in fighting six armed men, but it was better for the ego. Not so great for the skull, though.

He tried to say—to shout, "Starsky!" but nothing came out, and then everything went dark.

For a second he thought he'd passed out, and a second after that he knew he had, but for how long? Was he blind? His brain started working again, and he realized it was just that the boarded up windows didn't let in any light from the street. Was he alone?

And his hands were tied—no, cuffed—behind him. When had that happened? With luck, the porcupines hadn't found where he always hid the key.

His began to swear hard, a litany of "shit shit shit" until it sounded like some kind of non-word. It didn't really change anything, but it helped him wait out the rest of the time it took for the last of the fog to clear from his head.

Maybe Starsky was here in this room, or whatever it was, with him, but unconscious. Or . . . no. Either unconscious or not here at all.

"Starsky?" It was worth a try.

"No. Jamesy," someone said, and nearly gave Hutch a heart attack.

"Jamesy." *Jamesy*. "What the hell is this? This was supposed to be an easy bust. What the fuck did you do?"

"Hey, hey, Hutch, this ain't my fault. I swear I didn't know."

"Do you know where Starsky is?"

"No. He ain't in here."

All Hutch could think of were swear words. Nothing useful at all.

"All right. Tell me what the hell is going on before I kill you." Maybe the idiot would forget about his cuffed hands and how they'd render that threat impotent.

"I- I- I- I- told C-C-Crompton to meet me here, Hutch, just like you said. That I had a buyer for his guns and you had the cash and you were solid. I didn't know he was gonna bring his boys, Hutch. I didn't even know he had any boys. I just told him Starsky and Hutch would take care of him, no sweat."

"You fucking little moron. You told him our names?" Unbelievable. They were lucky there were only the six porcupines, and not an army. How could they have been so stupid as to walk into this? "You had fake names to use. Why didn't you?"

"I forgot, Hutch. I'm sorry, man. I forgot."

"More like you got paid a little extra on the other side, isn't that it? More like Crompton saw a way to get rid of us for good, isn't that more like it?"

"No, Hutch, I wouldn't do that to you guys. I swear."

"Okay. Okay." He tried to get past his fury. He took some quiet breaths and said his mantra a few times. It helped a little. "Okay. Are you tied?"

"Yeah."

"Where's the door?"

"I'm right next to it."

Hutch found it difficult to get to his feet. His ribs hurt and his shoulders ached, and his hands, behind his back, were useless. He made it finally to his knees, and half crawled, half rolled across the gritty floor to where he could hear Jamesy breathing.

"Do you know where Starsky is?"

"No. They took him somewhere."

Shit shit shit shit . . . Why wouldn't his brain get off the word and onto something useful?

"Where are we?"

"One of the apartments, I think."

"Why would they take Starsky somewhere else?"

"He, uh, he— he—"

"He what, Jamesy? Come on!"

"He, uh, I think he k-killed one of them. I think they got mad at him."

Mad at him? "Oh, my God." For a moment he struggled frantically to get his hands free, as if just pulling hard enough would do the trick. It didn't. How could Starsky have killed one of them, unarmed and barehanded? "Okay, listen. You're going to have to help me out here."

"Yeah, yeah, sure, Hutch. Anything. You just tell me, Hutch."

"Just turn yourself around, and see if you can feel into the side of my shoe. If there's a God, my handcuff key will be there, on the inside."

He turned himself around, too, trying blindly to meet up his foot with Jamesy's flapping hand. He listened to the grunts and groans as the kid moved, and fought not to tell him to hurry up. If the bad guys came back, there'd be nothing he could do for either of them.

He felt Jamesy's finger ease its way into his shoe, and felt repulsed by it, like it was some kind of obscene sexual act.

"Got it," Jamesy said.

Hutch clenched his teeth. "Just don't drop it."

"No, Hutch, hell no. I won't drop it, Hutch."

"Sit still," Hutch said. He twisted himself around, so that Jamesy could feel for the keyhole. He kept his teeth tight together so none of the things he wanted to say would escape. Nothing he wanted to say would help the situation.

Hutch felt like he might have died several times in the moments it took for Jamesy to find the keyhole and unlock the cuffs. His heart was fluttering instead of beating—fluttering like a bird caught inside and struggling against an invisible barrier of glass. Except that Hutch couldn't see through the barrier he was caught behind. He was sick of feeling like this. This was one too many times, and he was pretty sure he could never survive another. If he even survived this one. When they were done with this, he was going to tell Starsky it was time for them to find another profession. For real. He meant it.

Jamesy was muttering something in between his grunts. "This is it, man. Gonna go straight. Dad said go to college. Gonna go. Swear it, man, you're done with this shit."

So now he and Jamesy had something in common. God, how ironic.

The right cuff opened and Hutch's arms fell, his right knuckles slamming against the concrete floor. The small pain barely registered as some irrelevant blip on a blank screen, and he scrambled around to grab the key from Jamesy's hand. His fingers wouldn't work, between the shaking and the numbness. A bad combination. He dropped the key.

shit shit shit shit

Stop and take some breaths, he said inside his head.

"Don't leave me here." Jamesy's voice was high and tight.

How had he known that was the plan? "I won't. Just shut up." He couldn't leave him, he knew that. The kid would probably end up dead before he'd ever get back to him.

He felt around carefully, and the key was there. With steady hands he unlocked the left bracelet and shoved the cuffs into a pocket. He was going to need them again, later.

It turned out Jamesy's hands were cuffed, too. Starsky's cuffs.

Why weren't Starsky's cuffs on Starsky's wrists? The answer short-circuited his brain so that, for a moment, not even swear words could find their way out.

The cuffs fell away from Jamesy's wrists into Hutch's hand. He hadn't even been aware of unlocking them. He put them in his other pocket, and returned the key to its hiding place.

"Where's the door?"

"I don't know. I was next to it. I don't know, Hutch."

Of course when they found it, it was locked.

It was just a wooden door, but it felt solid, not flimsy. He tried shoulder-ramming it, and kicking it. It felt like it would give eventually, maybe sometime after the second thousand kicks. He didn't have that kind of time, nor stamina for that matter. His head began to pound, and his ribs kicked up a protest.

"Want me to try, Hutch? I can maybe do it, if you want me to try."

"No."

He went back to kicking, until he was pretty sure a small bone in his right foot gave way. He bit back a cry. He wasn't about to show even legitimate weakness in front of this idiot. But he couldn't keep going, not even a little longer, and it was going to take a lot more than that to get through this door.

"Yes," he said, and stepped back.

"Yes, what, Hutch?"

"Oh, for the love of . . ." he stopped. "Yes, please, Jamesy, please take a try at the door."

"Oh, sure, Hutch. Sure, I will." He made a few fairly creditable rushes at the door, saying "Oof" or "Ahh" each time. But still, the door stayed firm.

"Feel around and see if you can find something to hit the lock with, or ram it with."

"Oh, sure. I will."

Hutch heard him patting around on the floor, and moving things. In frustration, he turned back to the door himself, grabbed the knob in both hands, and gave it an almighty shake.

It fell off in his hand. So probably this was just a dream he was having, wherein he starred as a horror movie hero, and because of his inner goodness, luck followed him. Until it didn't.

He stuck some fingers into the lockset mechanism, but he couldn't get it to turn. Unless he could get the knob on the outside off, too, they were still locked in.

"Got something here, Hutch. Don' know what it is, though."

It was some kind of pipe. Not bad, but not enough.

"I need something to hit it with. I got the knob off but it's still locked. Find something to hit the end of it."

Jamesy went back to hunting and foraging, and Hutch started thinking. He had no idea how long he'd been out cold, but he didn't think it had been more than a few minutes. When the porcupine committee got done with whatever they were doing to Starsky, they'd come back to clean up the mess they'd left in here. His head hurt.

"Try this," Jamesy said.

Hutch had to admit the kid was coming through now. He'd give him some credit for that later.

Jamesy handed him some kind of round flat disk. Not great, but it was heavy, and better than nothing. Hutch set one end of the pipe against the lockset and gave it a couple of whacks with the flat of the disk, as hard as he could. The angle was bad, and the disk slipped, and he was afraid of smashing his own hand, but luck stuck around, and on the fourth hit, the whole lock disintegrated. They could hear the knob fall on the other side. A little light came in through the opening, and it took only a single strike with the pipe to push the rest of the mechanism out and away. The door swung inward with the smallest pull. Jamesy grinned, and Hutch—to his surprise—grinned back.

The disk turned out to be a small free-weight, and the pipe was the handgrip part that created a dumbbell. Hutch decided to take both weapons along for the ride. He handed the weight to Jamesy.

"Let's go."

But where to go? Starsky could be anywhere. Or nowhere.

He eased out into the hallway, more than half expecting a good wallop to the back of his head, or worse. Jamesy followed close on top of him, kicking at his heels and making him trip. He stopped and turned, and gave Jamesy the Look, and Jamesy backed off a step or two.

He rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. His scalp felt itchy and tight, his hands felt grubby, and he could smell his own rank sweat. When Jamesy bumped into him again from behind, he could smell him, too, and he felt like gagging. He had a sudden urge to turn around and deck him. Put him out for the count. He resisted, but only just.

And there was that other smell, that dead critter smell. He really didn't want to know what that was.

He started opening the doors to all the abandoned apartments, slowly, carefully. Jamesy seemed finally to have picked up on how to be helpful, because he did the same—slowly, carefully—but with no more luck than Hutch had.

At the end of the hall, where they'd first been overpowered by all the porcupines, where they'd fought and lost, Hutch could see a dark shape, a long awkward-looking humped thing on the floor. He swallowed. It seemed like the hallway lengthened out in front of him, and grew larger while he grew smaller, so that his steps didn't seem to advance him at all. If that was Starsky . . .

Jamesy grabbed his arm from behind, and Hutch nearly hollered. He shook him off and, letting go of caution, ran to the shape on the floor. If it was Starsky, it didn't matter if the porcupine committee heard him and came after him.

"That's the guy he killed," Jamesy said, voice low, breaths short and audible.

Hutch felt like sagging against the wall. It wasn't Starsky, it was the goon he'd managed to take out. Hutch could see the guy's head pressed hard against the wall, and the odd angle in his neck. Starsky must have shoved him and gotten lucky. The stink of urine and shit under and around the body overpowered the smell of the dead animal, and of everything else.

Behind him, Jamesy whispered something, like he was trying to talk but couldn't get anything to come out.

"What?" Hutch meant to keep his voice down, but his control was shaky and it came out louder than he'd meant.

"In here, Hutch. He's in here." Jamesy put a hand out. "But I don't think you wanna go in, Hutch—"

Hutch stood up fast, shoved him out of the way, and pushed through the doorway. He stopped short on a gasp.

Starsky sat in the middle of a torn up mattress that lay on an old wooden bed frame. His arms were pulled out to either side and bound with some kind of wire to the head and footboards. He'd slumped forward over himself, chest to thighs, head hanging limp almost between his knees. In the dark, he looked utterly motionless, deadly still. Dead . . .

"Oh, God."

He never looked at the floor, just tried to take the six steps he needed to reach Starsky, to wake him up, bring him back. As he tried to run forward, he tripped over something soft, something that stank. He tried to stay upright but he went down anyway, the metal pipe falling from his hand and thudding to the floor. His right foot slipped on whatever the dead thing was, sending a flare of pain up his leg, nearly to his head. He'd forgotten the broken bone in his foot. It hadn't mattered to him any more than any of the other sharp pains and dull ones. But now he felt it like a stab to the heart. It blotted out everything else, everything except the fact that as he fell, Starsky lifted his head and blinked at him.

"Hiya, Hutch."

The room stopped spinning. Hutch started breathing.

"Hi, Starsk. Y'okay?"

"Better now. You?"

"I'm okay."

"You yelped."

"Hurt my foot." He got up, avoiding the dead thing, and started to struggle with the wire holding Starsky's left wrist. It was slippery. He decided not to think about why.

"Oh." Starsky put his head back down slowly, like he didn't want to but couldn't help it. "Told you it wasn't a possum."

"What wasn't?" Hutch threw a glare at Jamesy, who seemed suddenly to reanimate and, sidestepping the dead thing, fell on one knee where he could reach Starsky's other wrist.

Starsky didn't pick up his head. "You got extra arms tonight?"

"No. It's Jamesy. What wasn't a possum, Starsk?"

"The smell. I said it was too big. Was right. It's a platypus. Duck billed. Lays eggs. Did you know that? It's a mammal. Lays eggs." He groaned, and tried to pretend it was a laugh. "What's Jamesy doing here?"

"Collecting eggs."

"Hah. Funny."

"What happened after I went down?"

"Can't remember. Just remember the thinkin' about platypuses."

What the hell had they done to him?

"It's okay, buddy. This is almost off you."

"Better hurry. Fire."

"No fire. I think they're gone."

Jamesy yelled, "Smoke! The building's on fire."

It began again: shit shit shit shit shit . . .

"Hutch."

"I'm hurrying. Just take it easy."

"Hutch. You need to go. Take Jamesy and go."

"I'm not even going to respond to that, Starsk. You're brain damaged. Obviously." He kept working as fast as he could.

And so did Jamesy. He never paused for a second. Hutch tried to catch his eye in the almost-dark, but Jamesy, intent, never looked up. He'd thank him later. A lot.

Starsky lifted his head and made some sounds that caused Hutch's stomach to clench up tight. "Hutch. Please."

"Shut up."

"Jamesy. Make him leave."

"Sure, Starsky, sure. I will," Jamesy said. He kept working, though, and suddenly looked up, triumphant. "I got it."

Starsky's right arm fell straight down, and he cried out. He put his head back down on his knee, without moving his free arm. "Oh, God, Hutch. Please. Please just go. Now."

"Can't hear you, buddy. Talk to your knees because I can't hear a word you're saying." The wire suddenly came loose, and Hutch caught Starsky's wrist before his arm could fall. "Can you sit up? Come on."

"No. Oh, ow."

Jamesy said, "Come on, Starsky. We're gonna help you, ain't we, Hutch?"

Hutch just stared, and then he coughed. "Yeah, we are. Come on, Starsk. We'll carry you."

Starsky couldn't sit himself up, so they pushed on his shoulders, gently, gently. Hutch bit his lip hard. Starsky's face was almost completely covered with bruises. Both eyes were swollen nearly shut. Hutch was afraid of broken jaws and teeth, broken nose, fractured skull. And God only knew what his stomach and kidneys looked like, or what his insides were doing besides bleeding.

Starsky couldn't lift his arms, so they slid theirs around his waist, one on each side, and carried him, still bent over, as fast as they could through the door and down the hall. It was full of smoke, but there were no visible flames, so they just kept going.

They passed the dead man, still lying there, still dead. Starsky turned his head to look, and Hutch didn't try to stop him.

"You or him, buddy," he said, coughing.

"I know."

Where was the rest of the porcupine squad? If the goons had set a fire and left them to burn alive, they hadn't done a very efficient job. Plus, they'd left the outer door unlocked. Hutch wasn't going to complain. They pushed outside, and as far away from the building as they could get.

The Torino, of course, was gone.

Starsky said nothing at all, which shocked and worried Hutch much more than if he'd started swearing or shouting. They sat down carefully against a building across the road, in the deep shadow of a doorway, Starsky making small sounds on the way down. He ended up half sitting, half lying across Hutch's legs. He couldn't have been comfortable, and Hutch certainly wasn't, but he left him alone.

Jamesy, apparently going for the Bay City Best Citizen Award, said, "You stay here, Hutch, okay? I'll go get help. I'll be back right away, Hutch, you don't gotta worry. Okay?"

"Where's your car?" Hutch said.

Jamesy just pointed at his own feet.

"Wait," Starsky said.

"What, buddy?"

"Huggy. Not an ambulance. Get Huggy."

"Starsky, no. You have to go to the hospital."

"I'd rather die."

Hutch could understand that, but still . . . "You sure?"

"I got enough experience to know nothing's busted inside. My jaw's working, case you didn't notice. I can see, no double vision." He twisted his head a little. "See? I'm fine, I was just stiff from being tied that way. I go, you gotta get your foot X-rayed. That's the deal."

Hutch looked at Jamesy. "Go get Huggy," he said. He dug around in his pockets and came up empty-handed. He dug around in Starsky's, and found his notebook, but no pencil.

"I got one," Jamesy said, and produced it.

Hutch just grinned and shook his head. He wrote the phone number for The Pits and handed it over.

"Wait," Starsky said.

"Now what?"

"Someone's already called the fire department. Hear the sirens? I don't want to have to stand up straight for the fire chief and look all pretty for him."

"Okay," Hutch said. "Jamesy, look, call Metro and ask for Captain Dobey. Tell the dispatcher I told you to call. Tell Dobey what happened, and where we are." He looked around fast, but there weren't too many places to wait for the cavalry. "There's no place else. We'll be right here."

Jamesy nodded, and took off, running fast and sure-footed. Starsky watched him go.

"Who was that masked man?" he said.

"I think we just lost a good snitch. He's all growed up, now, Pa."

"What the hell did you do to him?"

"Trusted him. Had no choice." Hutch shifted himself carefully out from under Starsky. "Can you move farther back into the doorway? I'll run interference for you with the fire chief."

"You don't look a whole lot better than I feel." Starsky sniffed. "And you smell like a dead platypus."

"Well, I feel a whole lot better than you look. And smell." He grinned. "Got a limp, though. Maybe no one will notice."

He lifted Starsky by the waist, ignoring the stabs inside his own chest from his ribs, and helped him move back out of sight.

"Hutch."

"What, babe?"

"I think I'm done with this. I thought you were dead. Knew I was. Enough is enough."

"My thoughts exactly." He watched as the first of the fire trucks pulled up in front of them. "How about firefighters?"

"No. Definitely not."

"Crop dusters?"

"Hell, why not bank robbers?" Starsky grinned, a little too carefully. One side of his mouth didn't move much. "'Esto es un robo.' See, I already know the jargon."

"How about treasure hunters? 'We don' need no steenkin bodges.'" He got himself to his feet, stiff and sore, and very unwilling to go through the next few hours. It had to be done, and then they could go steal some horses and ride off into the sunset. Seriously. He meant it. "I mean it, Starsk. It's time."

"I'm in. Or out. You know what I mean."

Hutch touched the side of Starsky's face in the one spot that wasn't blue and red. He stood up slowly. "Don't go away. I'll be right back."

Starsky put his head back and closed his eyes.

********

Ten days later, on the way to Huggy's after work, they stopped to pick up the Torino. Merle sauntered out, wiping his hands on a filthy rag. Hutch never could figure out the point of that.

They got out of the LTD and went to meet him. Merle sneered at the sight of Hutch's car, and seemed about to speak. Instead, he turned to his left, and pointed at the Torino, shiny and almost glowing in the late afternoon sun. It actually looked kind of nice, especially compared to the tricked-out horror shows parked on either side of it, but Hutch would never say so.

Merle said, "Walking like a pig with a thumbtack in its foot, ain't you, Hutchinson?"

"How would a pig get a thumbtack—"

Starsky cut him off. "She looks great, Merle. You're a magician."

"Tell your friend here."

Hutch just rolled his eyes.

"Any internal injuries?"

"Nope. You got lucky. Don't be leaving that car out and about where folks can help themselves to the goods. You got lucky."

"Yep. That we did." Starsky pulled out his checkbook.

Hutch saw the small wince and shoulder roll, even though he tried to cover it up. Still sore, still bruised, still on desk duty. Still on the job.

"What's the bad news?" Starsky said.

"Four tires, rims, hubcaps. Steering wheel, radio. Repairs to the dashboard, new—"

"You're killin' me, Merle. Just cut to the bottom line.

Merle gave him the total, and handed him the slip, which Starsky folded and pocketed without reading.

"Don't bring that baby back to me like that again, you hear?"

"No. I mean, yes."

Merle shot Hutch his usual disgusted glare, and turned away, muttering.

"Meet you at Huggy's," Starsky said to Hutch.

Hutch watched him as he walked toward the Torino. The sun caught the top of his head as he moved around the car, checking it out for himself, and Hutch had a moment of such huge relief that Starsky and the damn car were once again not permanently damaged, not fatally wounded, that he almost felt like leaving his car there to the mercy of Merle, and riding forever in the Torino. He felt like if he didn't, he might never see them again in one piece. He tried to shake it, but the feeling stuck with him, deep inside like a small porcupine in his gut, ready to lift its quills and smack him from the inside with its tail.

"Starsky," he said.

But Starsky had already climbed in, slammed the door, and roared the engine to life. He grinned and waved as he passed, and Hutch got a grip on himself, and hurried to follow.

Starsky leaned cross-armed against the wall behind The Pits.

"What took you so long?" he said as Hutch got out of the LTD.

"You kind of left me in your dust."

"Back to normal," Starsky said. He tried to sling an arm over Hutch's shoulder, but, grunting a little and grimacing, changed his mind and swatted at Hutch's butt instead.

Yeah, back to normal. That was the whole problem.

The Pits had a few customers sitting at the bar, and one or two at tables.

"Shit," Starsky said. "There he is."

Hutch looked where Starsky pointed, but he didn't see their snitch. "Where?"

"Right there. He's even early."

Hutch looked at the young man sitting at the far end of the bar, and felt like dropping his jaw when the guy turned around. It was Jamesy, but Hutch didn't think he'd have recognized him if he'd run into him somewhere. His wild hair was now tamed, and he had on gray slacks and a yellow sweater over a button down shirt. He looked taller, more solid, older.

"Hi, Hutch, Starsky," Jamesy said. "How are you?" He stood and approached them, hand out for a formal shake, smile wide and guileless.

Hutch said, "Who is that masked man?"

"You didn't recognize me, did you?"

"No. I thought you were Art Garfunkle with smaller hair."

"That's what my sister said."

"You got a sister?" Starsky said.

They sat in a booth, the two of them across from him, and waved over at Huggy.

"Two, and too young for you. Sorry."

"Yeah, well, I'm seeing someone anyway."

Hutch tapped his knee twice against Starsky's, and grinned when he felt the two taps back.

"I've got news," Jamesy said.

"So do we," Starsky said.

"You first, then."

"We got one of Crompton's little boys the other day and he sang like a butterfly."

Hutch kept his mouth shut, and Starsky tapped him again with his knee.

Jamesy said, "You mean like a bird, don't you?"

Starsky groaned. "Yeah, like a bird. Like a bird."

Hutch laughed.

"You got them all then? Do I need to go into some kind of witness protection?"

"You sound like you'd like that."

"No. No I wouldn't. I've got things to do. That's what I wanted to tell you. I enrolled in college!"

"I thought you were looking very collegiate," Hutch said. "That's great news."

"Yes. It's just the BC Community College for now, but it's a start. My dad's actually been whistling."

"What are you planning to study?" Starsky said, and held three fingers up to Huggy over at the bar.

"Well, you guys'll laugh." He seemed embarrassed. "I'm going to take some courses in criminal justice. I think I want to be a lawyer."

Hutch sat back. "That's fantastic, Jamesy, really." This young man was nothing like the grubby kid he'd last seen. He didn't even sound the same.

"Yes. I'm thinking I'd like to be putting guys like Crompton away for real, and not just ratting them out, you know?"

"Sounds like we can look forward to working with you again in the not too distant future," Starsky said.

Hutch felt the porcupine in his belly lift its tail, ready for a strike. He should have known Starsky wasn't serious about moving to South America.

Huggy brought over three mugs and a pitcher of beer.

Jamesy lifted a hand. "Sorry, but I can't stay. You drink mine, Huggy."

He slid out from behind the table, and stood up, tall and straight, and offered his hand again for friendly shakes. Hutch stared after him.

"Amazing."

"Unbelievable."

"So." Huggy took Jamesy's vacated seat. "You two look a little less like extras from this week's Creature Feature, and a little more like the tough guys I know and love."

"Yeah, tough guys." Hutch poured out the beers, and took a long swig of his.

Starsky looked at him. "Oh, my God," he said. "You were serious, weren't you?"

"About what," Huggy said.

"No." Hutch pondered his beer. "I was, maybe, but no. Not if you aren't, anyway."

"Anyone care to fill in the Bear?"

"Last week, after—" Starsky stopped. "After our latest escapade—"

"Escapade?"Hutch said. "That's what that was? An escapade?"

"That's all any of it ever is. Any of it that doesn't end with one of us hooked up to beeping machines, anyway."

Huggy looked mystified, but alert.

"Let me out." Hutch tried to shove Starsky off the end of the bench so he could get out, but he wouldn't move. Maybe he could crawl under the table, the way he used to when he was six, and wanted to annoy his dad. No, his healing ribs would keep him from folding himself small enough, and anyway, Huggy blocked that route. "Starsky, get the hell out of the way."

"Hell, no, Hutch. Talk to me."

"I think I hear someone calling for a refill," Huggy said to the air. He slid out from behind the table and disappeared.

Starsky pressed his thigh up tight against Hutch's. "Tell me," he said. "Come on."

"Let it go, will you please?"

"Nope." He leaned back in the seat and crossed his arms in front of him. Then he he made a face and uncrossed them. His shoulders were probably still too sore, though he'd never admit it. "You know I can make you talk, Blondie. You got no chance here. Might as well just fold now. I missed it, didn't I? You do want to quit."

"No. Yes. I did." He stopped. He couldn't formulate what he felt inside well enough to put it outside, into reality, into something he couldn't take back.

"You thought I was dead, didn't you, just like I thought you were. I felt every single blow when they were hitting me, and not one of them felt anything like the pain of the thoughts in my head." He dry-swallowed, and reached for his beer. He snagged Hutch's instead of his own. "I went away in my head. Couldn't deal otherwise."

"Platypuses."

"Yep. A lot easier to think about them than about what I thought was happening to you." He went quiet for a long moment. "You're not the only one who wanted out. I made all kinds of bargains in my head. Every thud was another one. 'Get us out of this and I'll do all our paperwork for the rest of the year.'"

"Just the rest of the year?"

"Not the point, baby. Focus." He grinned and pressed his leg harder against Hutch's for a second. "I made another deal, too. I swore if you were okay, I'd tell you I was done, and make you swear to me that you were. It was too much and I couldn't do it anymore. Not now, not since we . . ."

"Yeah."

"And then I said it to you, but you joked about it, and I thought, he isn't ready, it's not time yet. So I let it go."

"And you? Are you ready?" Deep inside, the porcupine lifted its head.

"I was. Now I feel better, and you feel better, and I got the itch back to go huntin' for bad guys, and I feel . . ."

"Invincible again."

"Yeah, something like that." He looked down at his hands, and Hutch looked at the yellowing splotches of the fading bruises under his eyelashes.

"We can't do the job if we don't feel that way," Hutch said, "but that's what might bring us down in the end."

"Yeah, exactly."

"So what's it going to be, then?"

"You making this mine?"

"No. Ours."

Starsky finished his own beer, and started eyeballing what was left of Huggy's.

"You're inside me, Hutch. You know that, right?"

"Yes." His pulse picked up, and he felt like he needed to dry his hands.

"Outside me, too. Everywhere. Everything."

"I'm not ready to lose you, Starsk. I never will be."