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With a curse, Starsky pressed the off button on the car radio, interrupting KKBC, All-weather-traffic-and-news-every-half-hour in mid-word. He’d heard it all before—yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that one. The whole Los Angeles basin was gripped by an October heat wave that had wild fires burning out of control in three different areas, and there would be no relief in the form of rain for at least another day, possibly two.
Fanning himself with the newspaper, Starsky opened the Torino door, in the hopes of an elusive stray breeze. There was none. The illuminated temperature sign on the bank across from the grocery where he was parked read 98 degrees. Perfectly normal for a human being—far too hot for weather in mid-October with pumpkins and warty-nosed witches decorating shop windows. Surely it wouldn’t be this hot on Halloween? It was a abomination to all that he’d held sacred as a boy. Autumn meant trees turning color, caramel apples, cardigans knit by Grandma Pulaski and Halloween night dressed like a ghost in a holey bed sheet.
At the rate this season was going, the trees would all be blackened husks before they finished turning red, gold and brown. The natural California summer and early fall drought conditions had already turned the grassy hills a dusty gold, just right for burning.
Bored, Starsky drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, feeling sweat sticking his shirt to his damp skin and then to the seat back. What the hell was taking Hutch so long? He was about to turn the radio back on, bad news and all, when a familiar blond hair came out of the grocery carrying a large sack.
“Finally!” Starsky grumbled. “What did you get? Sure took you long enough.”
“Water, lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper,” Hutch said with a jovial smile. He pulled out a bottle of spring water, twisted off the lid and drank half the contents in one go. “Refreshing! This is the first thing I’ve had today—wanted to start off right.”
“I thought you were going to get us breakfast!” Starsky protested, his voice going embarrassingly squeaky in his indignation.
“This water is my breakfast— and lunch and dinner.” Hutch took another long drink, finishing the bottle. “For the next ten days.”
“You’re going on one of those damned fasts again?” Starsky accused, his voice still far too high pitched. With conscious effort he dropped down into a lower register, his annoyance and impatience with Hutch’s many fads raging as quickly as one of the wild fires. “Hutch, those things never work. You go on to something else two weeks later, and worst of all—whenever you don’t eat, somehow I never seem to finish a meal!”
“You should try one of these cleansing fasts, Starsk,” Hutch said with enthusiasm. “Flushes out the colon, purifies the liver and kidneys—makes you live longer!”
“I don’t want live to be 145 and move to Aberzi—Aberzibaj . . .” Starsky gave up, smacking the steering wheel in frustration. They had this inane argument at least half a dozen times a year. Apparently, with the heat came another of Hutch’s attempts to fix the inner workings of his body. “I just want good food. You know, like corn flakes, bananas and uh . . .” Damn, thinking up healthy alternatives to the donuts he really wanted was harder than he’d expected.
“You gave it a good attempt,” Hutch said wryly, handing over a small bag with a greasy stain on the bottom. “Blueberry muffin and herbal tea.”
“Huh?” Starsky stared dumbly at the bag. After his rant, Hutch was being nice to him? There had to be a catch.
“Fresh blueberries baked right in, Starsky—unless you don’t want them. Made fresh this morning.” Hutch plucked a small steaming cup out of the bag, opening the lid to inhale the aroma. “Wonderful—doesn’t the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg just invoke autumn? And that little hint of anise and possibly . . .”
“Hey!” Starsky grabbed the cup, splashing hot liquid on his jeans clad leg He yelped at the almost pain and tasted the tea. Wonderful flavors filled his mouth, spicy and exotic. “I thought you said this was herbal tea.”
“It is.” Hutch set the blueberry muffin sack on the seat between them and gestured like Daddy Warbucks to his chauffeur for Starsky to start the car. “The sign posted over the pot said apple, hibiscus flower and orange peel, not to mention the spices.”
“There’s flowers in this?” Starsky handed the cup to Hutch for safekeeping, pondering the thought of drinking flowers. “I thought those could kill you—like deadly nightshade or death caps.”
“Death caps are mushrooms, and both would kill you. “ Hutch chuckled. “Well, most people, maybe not ol’iron gut there.” He patted Starsky’s flat abdomen as the Torino motor roared to life. “But many flowering plants are edible.”
“You sound like that guy who eats pine trees.” Starsky steered the car out onto the street, his belly rumbling for a nice bite of that muffin. “What’s his name? Euell Gibbons—some parts if a pine tree are edible. Didn’t he croak?”
“Not from eating wild celery. He had a heart attack.” Hutch snorted indignantly. “You’ve eaten flowers—nasturtiums in your salad and rose hip jelly last week.”
“I have not!”
“You did—that was the jelly you ate with the organic peanut butter on whole wheat bread last Monday, at my place.”
“That bread was whole wheat?” Starsky hated being deceived like that. It made the meal seem less satisfying, even a week later.
“Chamomile tea has flowers in it.”
“Enough with the flowers!” Starsky idled the car, waiting for squad car Adam 9 to pull out of his favorite parking spot right into front of Metro. When the space was free, he slid the Torino in, smooth as a hand into a glove. “So what’s this new fast?” he asked, hating that he even had a modicum of interest. But if Hutch stopped eating for ten whole days, he was apt to be cranky, if not downright mean. “You don’t have to suck a lemon to be sour. Not eating will do the same thing.”
“I’ve already asked Mildred in the cafeteria if I can use the juicer to squeeze the lemons,” Hutch said loftily, getting out of the car with his groceries. “Then I add the water, cayenne and maple syrup. Nutritious, and easily carried wherever I’m going.”
“Perfectly revolting, if you ask me.” Starsky stuffed the muffin into his mouth before they made it up the front steps of the building and chugged down the cooling tea. He wanted more. No way would Hutch survive more than a week on that glorified lemonade.
“I’ll meet you in fifteen with my ‘master cleanse’,” Hutch said, heading down the stairwell to the basement level cafeteria. “You want anything from Mildred?”
“Not since she spit in my apple pie, no.” Starsky contemplated a chocolate bar from the vending machine. Seeing Dobey punching the buttons for a Snickers, he took an abrupt right into the detective’s squadroom hoping to avoid his superior. He hadn’t yet finished the arrest reports from the day before.
“Starsky!”
Damn, the Captain had already seen him. Starsky grabbed the topmost folder on the desk, acting like he’d been absorbed in the contents for half an hour. “Capt’n?” he asked as innocently as possible.
“Where’s your partner?” Dobey said between chews of his candy bar.
“You going off your diet?”
“Edith gave me a grace day since I lost four pounds.” Dobey smoothed a hand down the moss green vest straining across his abdomen.
“I could tell—looks more like ten,” Starsky lied smoothly. “Gotta get this file on Jablonski finished before his booking hearing, Cap.”
“When Hutchinson gets back here, meet me in my office!” Dobey shucked the last of the wrapper off his candy and tossed it in the trash can. “Situation up in the Baldwin Hills.”
“Isn’t there a fire up there?” Starsky realized belatedly that he was ‘reading’ the file upside down and placed it back on the desk. Wasn’t even Jablonski’s report, anyway.
“Already evacuated most of the area, but lost ten houses.” Dobey shook his head with sadness, “Several people were injured—burned, including a firefighter, although the fire took a turn and went up past La Brea into the state recreation area there and the firemen are hoping they have it contained.”
“So, what do we need to do there?” Starsky slouched in his chair, trying to remember the last time he even held a garden hose to water plants. He’d be less than useful helping out trained firefighters.
“Investigate a murder.”
Down in the gleaming kitchen of the cafeteria, Hutch swirled a long handled spoon in his special concoction, smiling amiably at Mildred who stood watch over her spotless appliances like an Inspector General surveying the troops.
According to his new girlfriend Veronica, this special lemonade could put more vim into his step, restore his vigor and help him lose those last ten pounds that had lingered since the previous Christmas when Starsky had insisted on learning to make fudge. He’d made dozens of batches to perfect the recipe just like his mother used to make, and then gave the results to all and sundry who’d helped him in the long days after his recovery. Hutch had sampled nearly all the batches of the delicious chocolate, just for quality control, of course. And Starsky, seeing how much he enjoyed the treat, had made it every month since then—just to tempt his partner.
“Bottoms up!” Hutch drank down the first glass of his master cleanse, feeling positively virtuous. The taste wasn’t bad. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The tartness of the lemon juice was tempered by the maple syrup and the cayenne pepper wasn’t nearly as strong as he’d anticipated. He could get used to this. It’d go perfect on a long afternoon by the pool—accompanied by a hamburger and fries.
No, he was going for the full fast; ten days of this juice, along with clear water and weak, herbal laxative teas in the evening. Having already started with a pineapple and iceberg lettuce salad, sans dressing, and water the night before, he was well on his way to a leaner, more healthy Ken Hutchinson.
“You better clean up after yourself,” Mildred reminded, giving him the evil eye before she turned back to the vast caldron of beef stew simmering for the lunch time crowd.
“Don’t worry—just used a few utensils.” Hutch loaded the dishwasher with juicer, wooden spoon and knife, and stored two more gallons of his juice, with a large label marked “Ken Hutchinson, do not drink” in the huge refrigerator. He kept one quart bottle to drink in the car, already chuckling at the ribbing Starsky would give him. Didn’t matter, he was going to glow with health after this regime. It might be a bit restrictive, and possibly demanding to follow, but the results would be worth it.
Bounding up the stairs to the bullpen, he was imbued with energy, ready for whatever Bay City had to throw at him.
“Dobey said the cops helping evacuate a large apartment complex swept the building and found a body lyin’ in a bedroom on the second floor—215 A, I think,” Starsky said, munching on the bagel he’d grabbed from the box next to the coffee pot in the squadroom. A cola from the soda machine sat on the seat beside him. No way was he going to go hungry just because Hutch was.
“315 B.” Hutch consulted the paper Dobey had given them. He took a long swig of his health juice.
“Whatever. I figure there’d be someone there to direct us to the right room.” Starsky coughed, rolling up his window. The wind was blowing smoke right at them from the fires, and as they drove up La Brea the air quality was getting worse by the second—which was saying a lot in the smoggy city.
“Hey, you know that movie, Krakatoa, East of Java?” Starsky remarked.
“What about it?” Hutch asked, clearing his throat. The smoke was getting to both of them.
“Saw it last night on the TV.” Starsky spied a road block ahead, two patrol cars blocking La Brea where it branched off to Veronica Street on the left. A cluster of fire trucks and paramedic vans were parked just beyond. “Did you know that they got the title wrong? Krakatoa is west of Java, not east.”
“Starsky, what in the hell made you think about that at a time like this?”
“Cause I’d like to be east or west of anyplace but this.” He grimaced, pointing to a column of black smoke that was perilously close by.
A blue uniformed officer held up his hand to prevent the Torino’s passage and Starsky fished out his badge from his windbreaker pocket.
“Can’t go up there, Detective,” the patrolman said, his tone official and deferential to Starsky’s position at the same time.
“We were sent up to check out a dead body at—“ Starsky glanced over at Hutch, the address already gone from his short-term memory.
“4068 Nicolet,” Hutch supplied.
“Oh, yeah, I was told to let you guys by.” He nodded, his face sooty from the smoke. “Up that way and take a right on Coliseum.”
Starsky had to drive slowly, threading his way past platoons of fire trucks and emergency vehicles. If he had his druthers, he’d have turned around and driven all the way to the ocean fast. Fire was scary, and one of his least favorite things.
Despite the many emergency personnel, firefighters and paramedics, without the usual pedestrians and children playing on the sidewalks the area had an oddly deserted feel. Starsky knew Baldwin Hills well, having rented an apartment just a few streets over from Nicolet just after he’d gotten out of the Army. The place had grown continually more congested with dozens of apartment buildings and businesses crowding the district. If the fire did turn back towards this side of La Brea, they were in deep shit.
The air felt thick and hard to breathe when they parked the car behind the apartment building and followed a red-faced police officer named Higgly up to the third floor.
“Neighbors said this guy didn’t go out much,” he explained. “Hard to tell when he died, but looks like days, maybe. Smell’s pretty bad, even with the smoke clogging my sinuses.”
“Terrific.” Starsky wiped his forehead, but the sweat just dripped into his eyes and stung. It was like an oven in the small apartment and the tenant apparently didn’t have an air conditioner. “You get a name from those neighbors?”
“Hans von Brahm.”
“Gah.” Hutch poked his head in the miniature bedroom. The place reeked of death and decomposition. He pulled the collar of his lightweight jacket up over his nose, and in doing so, jostled the bottle he’d stowed in the pocket. Like the water balloons he’d tossed at his sister in the Minnesota summers, the bottle arched in the air, landing with a loud crash on the floor just feet from the dead body, broken glass littering the carpet. “Shit!” Hutch yelled, sticky lemon juice splattering his jeans from knee to ankle.
“Blintz, you’re contaminating the crime scene,” Starsky chided with a smile to cut the accusation. The room was so small he couldn’t get in past Hutch, and had to peer past his partner’s shoulder at a pair of legs poking out from behind an unmade bed.
“That was the only bottle of the master cleanse I brought with me.” He held his jacket to his nose, his face distinctly pale.
“Smell’s getting to me.” Starsky waved his hand in the air as if that would do any good at all. “I got some Vicks in the glove compartment of the car.”
“I’ll go get it,” Hutch volunteered and shoved past Starsky to get out of the claustrophobic bedroom.
Hutch took the stairs two at a time, landing at the bottom with a wheezing huff. Why had the smell bothered him so much more today than other days? Wasn’t like the air outside was any better—it just smelled different, like sticking his head directly up the chimney flue. He coughed again, glancing up at the sky.
The sun was almost obscured by thick, ominous clouds that erupted from the fire over to the left. Even without the sun’s direct glare, the ground was blisteringly hot, the blacktop soft and almost squishy under the soles of his desert boots. He felt like he was performing one of those rituals of fire with a Holy man, walking across smoldering embers, the heat barely tolerable even his shoes on. Every once in a while, the sirocco wind blew bits of ash in his face. This was hell, and the fire was still a few blocks away in the dry grass and eucalyptus trees where there were fewer houses. If it jumped the main road, which was entirely possible considering the way the wind was now blowing, there would be a maelstrom with all the closely packed houses.
Grabbing the small blue bottle of Vicks from the Torino’s glove compartment, Hutch stared longingly at the open bottle of cola on the seat.
No, he would be strong. He would not wimp out on the very first day. Losing the bottle of juice was a set-back but there were several gallons back at Metro. The problem was, he felt queasy and light-headed—probably from lack of solid food, but he would soldier on. He’d endured fasts plenty of times in the past, leaving himself pure and fresh afterwards. It was a fantastic sensation, and he relished the power it gave.
A huge gust of wind slammed the car door shut just as he stepped away, and his heart pounded uncomfortably against his ribs from the adrenaline rush. Damn, he was getting jumpy. With any luck, the coroner’s wagon would arrive soon so that he and Starsky could get out and back to patrolling where the danger came from the human element and not unpredictable natural disasters.
After applying enough of the strong smelling menthol ointment under his nose to clear his sinuses and make his eyes water, Hutch went back into the apartment building. He paused, hearing a creepy crackling coming from the tops of the trees. Looking across the street and past a line of roofs, he could see bright orange flames devouring the highest branches. A surge of water, arched like some beautiful flying buttress, hit the fire, sending sparks in all directions, but didn’t entirely put out the blaze.
A black van pulled into the parking lot, boxing in Starsky’s car in the process, and the medical examiner, Ed Grayson jumped out, coughing. “Hell of a run—that fire’s gonna be here any minute, Hutch!” he yelled. His assistant was already grabbing the necessary equipment to transport the body and Hutch showed them up the stairs.
Again, in a confined space, the combination of burning ash and putrefaction was nauseating, and Hutch had to hold his breath for a moment, sure he was going to heave just like some fresh out of the academy rookie.
Starsky didn’t look much better, his chest heaving with the effort to breathe. Hutch thrust the jar of Vicks into his hand and Starsky gratefully smeared some Vicks under his nose, coughing sharply. Higgly learned quickly, following suit when Starsky passed him the chest rub.
“Looks like an execution style shooting,” Starsky said, his voice raspy like a two-pack-a-day smoker’s. He put two fingers to the back of his own head and blew a raspberry. “Two holes, right through the back. Hands tied behind him and a pair of socks stuffed in his mouth.”
“Spinelli.” Hutch grimaced. “Just like all the others, his signature. Like he’s saying, this is what I do to my enemies.”
“First time I’ve ever been near . . .one like that. Seen car accidents . . .” Higgly leaned against the wall of von Brahm’s living room, the whites of his eyes showing all the way around his blue irises.
“I can see fire from here, guys,” he said nervously, pointing in the direction of the burning trees Hutch had spotted from the parking lot.
“The wind has shifted,” Hutch agreed, listening to the sounds of Grayson and his burly assistant bundling the body into the morgue sack. “Those trees are only about two blocks away.”
“Grayson, get a move on!” Starsky called out. “We need to bug out now!” He coughed, pressing his hand flat against his chest, and Hutch had the overwhelming impulse to get his partner to safety immediately. Starsky bore the scars from Gunther’s hired assassin’s bullets. His lung capacity suffered because of that, and he was far more easily winded than Hutch was.
“Starsk . . .” Hutch started, and then stopped himself even before Starsky shot him a look that very plainly said ‘lay off.’ His own belly lurched uncomfortably at the idea of burning to death in a dingy apartment with a murdered body, and Hutch held himself still, standing near enough to Starsky to feel the scrape of Starsky’s shoulder when he turned to push the front door open to let Grayson and his assistant by with their burden.
“We’re not gonna get anything more from this place.” Starsky shook his head. “If they get the fire under control, the lab guys can come back and dust for prints, but I ain’t gonna burn up for some measly evidence when we just about got an autograph from Spinelli from the way the body was laid out.”
“If you burned up, the evidence would, too, Starsk,” Hutch reminded, concentrating on keeping the lemonade he’d drunk in his belly and not all over his shoes.
“You’re just a joyful soul, aren’t you?” Starsky patted Hutch’s abdomen sweetly, which helped his nausea more than any medicine ever could. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. Were you here all by yourself?” he asked Higgly as they hurried down the stairs.
“My buddy Vic was on the street,” Higgly stopped so suddenly Hutch ran into him in the narrow stairwell landing. “Didn’t you see him?”
“There’s a couple of guys back at the intersection,” Starsky said. “But nobody on Nicolet.”
“Damn,” Higgly swore. “Where’d he go?”
“You have a bullhorn?” Hutch asked, unbuttoning the top button of his pale blue shirt to fan his chest. His shirt and over-shirt were stuck to his body with sweat, and the holster under his left arm was like a huge boulder rubbing a blister into his superheated flesh. “Call out for him.” The morgue wagon pulled out with a puff of caustic smoke from the exhaust that only added to the horrific air quality.
“Yeah, it’s in the car.” Higgly yanked open the door of the black and white parked next to Starsky’s car. But the amplification wasn’t necessary because a dark skinned man in a police uniform came pelting down the street, waving his arms.
“Fire’s jumped La Brea and the fire trucks parked on Coliseum are blocking the way out.” He panted, his breath coming out in croaky gasps. “They’re trying to create a break by letting a vacant lot burn and hosing down all the buildings around it.”
“What about the playground up past Rodeo?” Starsky asked, hacking so hard he had to brace himself on the patrol car.
“Everything’s burning—we’ll have to go down in the other direction.”
“You guys go out first,” Hutch urged. The air was unbreathable, filled with hot ash and cinders that burned his throat.
The rookies didn’t need any more prompting. Higgly and Vic jumped into their cruiser, calling in the latest on the fire to dispatch. An overhead helicopter carrying flame retardant over a nearby hillside drowned out whatever dispatch answered, but Vic sketched a wave at the detectives. “We’re supposed to report to the lieutenant down on the lower end of La Brea. We’ll go down to Santo Tomas and see if we can backtrack through the park land there.”
“If we go left, we can bypass Coliseum and go straight back to Crenshaw.” Starsky grabbed the driver’s side door handle of the Torino. “Shit!” He jerked back. “Burned my hand!”
Hutch slid his hand back in his jacket sleeve, using the cuff to gingerly open the car door and pushed Starsky’s open from the inside. “Can you drive?”
“Look, it’s all red!” Starsky complained, holding out his palm.
“Matches the car,” Hutch returned. The wound wasn’t serious, and if they stuck around any longer, there were far worse fates than a first degree burn. He licked his dry lips but his tongue wasn’t much wetter.
Copying Hutch, Starsky wrapped the sleeves of his windbreaker around his hands before touching the searing hot steering wheel and quickly backed the car up.
Inside the Torino, the temperature must have been above 120. Hutch cranked down the window, but the hot air only blew more embers inside. With the fire raging so close, even the ambient temperature outside the car was unbearable, and getting hotter by the second; the wind pushed the flames faster than a man could run—or possibly even drive.
“Look behind us,” Starsky said grimly, the rear wheels fishtailing off the sidewalk as they roared down Nicolet Avenue. There was a wall of flame rising up just over a block away like some primordial beast intent on destroying the city.
“Reminds me of the Hindenburg.” Hutch grabbed the seat belt and clicked it into place when Starsky took a corner at high speed. His stomach rose into his chest, fighting to dive right out of his mouth, but Hutch clamped his jaw shut, craning his neck to look backwards. Three hook and ladder trucks had crowded onto Nicolet, and the last thing he saw before the Torino sped away was a fountain of water dousing the apartment buildings in an attempt to save some of them.
“The Hindenburg went up in less than a minute, didja know that?” Starsky spoke as if he weren’t really paying much attention to what he was saying, just talking to keep his fear at bay.
Hutch could feel a high-octane adrenaline vibe zipping between them like a prickle of electricity on his skin, or maybe it was just nerves. He held on tightly as they swerved onto a wider street, the odor of burning rubber mingling with the strong scent of baking eucalyptus into an aroma not unlike cat box perfume. Blackened ash filled his nostrils, clogging his head, but at least it reduced the nauseating smell.
The inferno coming off the playground had ignited the dry brush and trees straight down the boulevard, surrounding the entire area in hungry flames. Graceful willows with their long drooping branches exploded into bright sparklers, the fire jumping from tree to tree like parishioners passing along flame from candle to candle at a midnight Mass.
“We can’t out run it,” Hutch said, his throat raw. Tall maples were interspaced with the decorative willows and the once beautiful canopy that had shaded the street now took on a sinister demeanor as the fire leapt across the top of the racing car by way of the leaning branches.
Now they were surrounded, fires blazing on both sides of the Torino and moving almost as quickly. The whine of helicopter blades from above and the shrill vibrato of sirens from the fire engines combined into a cacophony of hellish sound that only emphasized the immediate danger.
Starsky clutched the steering wheel with both hands, his face set, foot pressed down hard on the gas. The Torino careened wildly around vehicles that had been parked haphazardly and then abandoned when their owners tried to escape the conflagration. One car, its hood shoved almost up against the trunk of a willow, burst into flames, showering the street with smaller, but no less deadly blazes. Newspapers, trash cans and an entire shoe shine stand were burning out of control.
“Starsky!” Hutch reached out blindly, wanting to stop what he could see was happening and not able to believe it, all at the same time. He wrapped his hand around Starsky’s thigh, hanging on.
Starsky muttered something unprintable under his breath, his hands welded to the steering wheel, body totally in tune with the car. They shot through a sheet of flame like a thick-bodied rocket, the air so flammable that Hutch could feel his lungs scorching when he sucked in a breath as the car landed on the other side.
Five fire engines almost barred their way, but Starsky slalomed between them as if he were slamming through an Olympic downhill course. All five trucks pumped gallons of water on the firestorm, preventing it from swarming down to the even more populated Crenshaw.
The Torino came to a shuddering halt, spray from the hoses hissing on the scorching metal of the car. Hutch jammed open the door, unmindful of the blistering handle and bolted from the car, landing on his knees in a puddle of hot water. His stomach finally succeeded in its quest to eject all contents but there was little left to barf; just a tiny trail of caustic bile came up, irritating his already ravaged throat. Barely balanced on his hands and knees, Hutch let his head hang down, exhausted. He could hear Starsky’s agonized wheezing and thought that he should get up, get Starsky to the hospital. He was the one with permanent lung damage. Starsky would need medical attention to guard against things like smoke inhalation and singed air passages. But Hutch couldn’t move. His body felt like a dry husk.
He should have had more fluid. It had been a mistake to go all morning without anything to drink except enough water to rinse out his mouth after brushing. His tongue parched, and he envisioned the refreshing bottles of master cleanse back in Mildred’s fridge. To hell with the cayenne flavored lemonade—wasn’t there a half bottle of soda in the car?
The sound of Starsky’s breathing was like a rusty nail being yanked from old timber. Hutch pulled himself to his feet, staggering back to the car. “You need oxygen,” he barked, hacking up something he didn’t want to examine too closely. He tried to spit sideways but his mouth was too dry and he finally wiped his mouth with the cuff of his filthy jacket.
Starsky half-chuckled, “Speak for yourself, Blondie,” he rasped.
The soda bottle lay on the floorboards, the contents evaporating rapidly in the hot air. Hutch felt his stomach drop sickeningly and wondered if he should sit down before he passed out. Luckily, the sensation was momentary but he was still light-headed when Starsky wrapped one hand around his wrist.
“I think we gotta get out of here.” Starsky pointed down the road where a Red Cross van and two ambulances were parked. Dozens of citizens were hunkered around the rescue vehicles watching their homes and livelihoods go up in smoke.
The firefighters had gotten the upper hand on the blazes in the main street because once the dry vegetation was destroyed, the shops and buildings burned much more slowly.
A battle area right in the middle of downtown Bay City.
“Move your car down this way!” A Red Cross worker called, motioning them to park in a narrow space near the red and white van. She helped them both out of the car and settled them in the triage center that reminded Hutch of the tent hospitals on MASH.
Hutch would have laughed at Starsky’s incensed expression when a medic strapped a green plastic oxygen mask over his mouth and nose if another medic hadn’t been doing the same to him.
The first hit of one hundred percent oxygen made his head spin, but he sucked in the rarified air greedily, watching Starsky have his vitals taken. Starsky was the one who needed care—he was the one with bad lungs.
“I’m Evangelina,” a nurse wrote some information on her clipboard, and checked the flow of Hutch’s oxygen tank. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t really need this,” he protested, trying to pluck off the foul smelling plastic mask.
“Keep it on,” Evangelina insisted and pressed her stethoscope to his chest. “Take a deep breath.”
Hutch inhaled and coughed so violently his head throbbed with the effort. He gagged, trying to inhale to get in enough oxygen to stay conscious. Through the haze, he could feel Starsky’s arm around his shoulders, holding him upright.
“I’d say you do need it.” The nurse smiled grimly at him and went on to her next patient.
“Finished?” Starsky asked when the last of Theophylline had emptied out of the chamber on the breathing treatment. He’d always hated that nasty inhaled drug since his long hospital stay—it made his heart tap dance faster than Gene Kelly’s talented feet and left him jittery and very slightly high. He didn’t let Hutch know that—the guy looked like he was on his last legs as it was. No sense giving him any more ammunition to worry about Starsky. He did enough of that on an average day. “Can we go now?”
“One last listen,” Evangelina cautioned. She plugged her ears with the stethoscope, concentrating as Starsky breathed in and out.
He was careful to avoid breathing so deeply that he coughed because the results would just be an immediate trip to the hospital and more of the wretched breathing treatments. He knew doctors and respiratory treatments far too well. It took over half an hour to extract the two of them from, what was, in Starsky’s opinion, the overly solicitous clutches of Nurse Evangelina. But with repeated promises that he and Hutch would get themselves over to the nearest private physician just as soon as humanly possible, they were able to make their escape from the green plastic oxygen masks.
He stopped to stare at the charred black streaks marring the Torino’s paint job. They’d had a close call, no two ways about it. Hutch cautiously touched the passenger side of the car, leaving a handprint in the soot.
“Managed to avoid an IV, huh?” Starsky nudged his partner, hoping for a smile or at least an acknowledgement that they’d beaten the Grim Reaper once again.
“She said I was dehydrated!” Hutch sounded like a grouchy old geezer with his husky voice. He coughed into his fist and drank about a pint of water from the bottle Evangelina had given him.
“Told you weak lemonade was no trade for a good bottle of root beer. Lots of root beer.”
“You did not.”
“I meant to.” Starsky sat back in the seat of the Torino, the aftermath of the adrenaline and Theophylline leaving him shivering and headachy. He wanted to go home and sleep, but he and Hutch were alive and had homes, and so many others had lost so much on this day. There was too much to be done. He tipped back his own bottle of water, wishing it were something a great deal stronger. Not root beer.
“What next?” Hutch said softly, rubbing his chest.
“Find Spinelli,” Starsky decided, swishing water around in his mouth before swallowing. Everything tasted like stale cigarettes, which was exactly why he’d given up smoking after Viet Nam.
Hutch nodded, reaching out to grasp the gear shift between them. “Old girl got singed but she saved our butts.” He turned his palm up, smiling when Starsky dropped his hand on top of Hutch’s. “Damned good driving, Starsk. Don’t ever listen to me again when I say you drive too fast.”
“Can’t let my best pal get burned up. Wouldn’t be right.” Starsky shrugged, pretending a nonchalance he didn’t feel, and gave Hutch’s hand a squeeze. He wanted to hug the stuffing out of Hutch and celebrate their brush with death. Instead, they had to hunt down a brutal killer while the city burned in the oppressive afternoon heat.
Inserting the key into the ignition, Starsky heard a curious sound that made him snort, then guffaw with laughter. Hutch’s stomach was rumbling, loudly.
“You hungry by any chance? Want me to swing by the station for some liquid cleanse refreshment?” Starsky teased. “I was planning on a rare steak with onions and mushrooms grilled on top and about two gallons of iced tea. But a good friend told me that red meat clogs up your colon, so I won’t tempt you.”
“If you don’t start this car and get us to Joe’s Steak House in about ten minutes, Starsky, so help me . . .”
“Yes sir, bossman,” Starsky agreed, putting the car into gear. “What about the master cleanse?”
“I’ll whip up a batch right there,” Hutch improvised. “Grab just a couple of lemon wedges from your tea, mix two packets of brown sugar with some water at the table—. Order up about two fingers of good tequila from the bar. Voila—modified master cleanse. You’ll see, the stuff goes perfectly with a Porter House steak.”
“Sounds suspiciously like a Tequila Sour to me.”
Hutch grinned and winked. “It’s good for you, Starsk.”
Fin
.