Author’s note: This story fills in some gaps in the second part of "Starsky and Hutch on Playboy Island" and goes on to complete what I felt was an unresolved plot. It’s slash, as you’ll know very early on, and there is some violence though it’s mostly implied.

Voudon (only one of several spellings) is a real religion. But it isn’t mine. I’m sure, therefore, that I have messed up from time to time; I apologize to anyone who knows better. I found help online in several places; the best were http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/5319/ayibobo.htm (under "Dances" it even has audio files of drum rhythms, and this is where I get the phrases Minnie says to Starsky) and http://members.aol.com/racine125/index1.html (particularly good for pictures, even a few video clips; the song to La Sirene is here too). I also got help from Raven Lee and from a friend of mine who has attended ceremoni in New Orleans. And my wonderful team of beta-readers, as always.

Oh, none of this belongs to me: not Starsky and Hutch, not Playboy Island or its resort or most of the characters. I did make up Isobel, though if you want I can point out which of the dancers she is.

No actual chickens were harmed in the writing of this story.

Jat Sapphire

   The morning after Hutch and Starsky had been an involuntary part of Papa Theodore’s voodoo ceremony, they woke up in the surf, waterlogged, as if they’d been washed up out of the ocean. Starsky woke to the water sliding back and forth over him and the sand hard against his face, all along the front of his body. He felt like a dishrag with a hangover. Hutch had to pull him up, first to a seated position and then to his feet. They staggered out of the water only to be met by Charlotte Connery, Thorne’s nurse, of all people. It wasn’t until much later that they understood that it was not at all coincidental.

   After some argument, she took them back to the resort hotel. They looked nothing like their cover roles, Fred Night and Ed Day, by that time, so they talked Charlotte into dropping them off at the back entrance, and they slipped up to their room as discreetly as possible. Starsky thought they’d avoided any of the girls who worked the high-profile jobs at the resort, though they ran into a few of the cleaning staff. One young black woman with a cart full of towels and soap gave them a hard look as they came out of the staircase. Starsky thought she looked very vaguely familiar, but supposed she might have been in the hall before.

    They closed the room door behind them and leaned against it.

    "Glad to be back," said Starsky. He had to push himself away from the surface of the door with both hands, and then looked vaguely down at his ruined Caribbean-entertainer costume. Then heard Hutch clear his throat. Turned and saw the blond head still against the wood, the blue eyes fixed on him.

    "Should I ... help you off with that?"

   Hutch’s come-on lines, in general, stank. But he could say the dumbest thing in history in that I’m-turned-on husky voice, and Starsky was right with him.

    "Get me off? Is that what you said?" They grinned at each other.

   Standing so close—when had they moved?--Starsky could see blond stubble against the greasy remains of brown makeup. He could smell sweat and sea-salt. Hutch’s fingers ran lightly up the open front of Starsky’s red satin shirt, now blotched and stiff. "This costume is indecent," Hutch said. "Did I tell you that?"

   Starsky grabbed at Hutch’s arms, and one hand clenched in that orange satin sleeve until the salt-soaked fabric began to give. "Same as yours," he said.

   "No," murmured Hutch, and his hands moved to the bare skin at Starsky’s waist. He slid both hands, slowly, around to the back, where Starsky’s pants rode so low that he’d been afraid they would slip off. Hutch ran his fingernails along the top of the fabric, not scratching but letting Starsky feel the edges. "Been looking at that," Hutch said, voice even huskier than before, and then slipped his fingers inside, reaching the bare inch or so into the crack of Starsky’s ass.

   "Hutch!" Starsky’s fingers were in the sticky, tangled blond strands, his palms full of stubble. He pulled Hutch’s mouth down to his and devoured it.

   Hutch tasted weird. Salty and bitter (the ocean?) stale and musty, something like rum, something like semen. Starsky’s own mouth felt raw, his jaw sore. It didn’t matter just then. This was Hutch’s mouth, Hutch’s breath puffing on his upper lip, Hutch’s tongue moving against his own.

   Those damn pants had to go—Starsky was strangling in them. He jerked his head back, mouth still open, and Hutch leaned in and began to nibble and suck at Starsky’s neck. "Oh god, Hutch," was all his suddenly sex-fried brain seemed able to say. "Ah ..." One of Hutch’s hands was at the front again, grabbing Starsky’s pent erection, toying with his navel, rubbing down again. "Pants!" Starsky managed to get out.

   "Oh, yeah," Hutch agreed fervently, and dropped to his knees. He unfastened and pulled them down in a moment. Starsky couldn’t help thrusting forward and Hutch opened his mouth as if they’d planned and practiced exactly this.

   Hutch’s mouth was as hot, his tongue and lips as soft, as ever. Starsky gave himself to the drawing, caressing sensation and felt a spurt of what must be precome. He groaned.

    And then Hutch looked up in surprise and let the softening cock slip out of his mouth.

   "That was it?" Starsky couldn’t believe it. He’d had times when he couldn’t keep an erection, but just now he’d been so aroused, he shouldn’t have been—shouldn’t—

   "Starsk, are you okay?"

   "I thought so." But seeing the dazed expression still on Hutch’s face, Starsky put his own problem aside. He stepped out of the pants, knelt, and put one arm around Hutch. "Let’s take care’f you, babe," he said, and opened Hutch’s fly with the other hand.

   Hutch wasn’t erect either. Starsky kneaded him a little and Hutch covered the working hand with his own. "Never mind," said Hutch. "We’re worn out, I guess."

   They kissed, long and slow and sweet, as if they’d finished instead of hardly starting, and then Hutch said, "Shower?"

   "Yeah," Starsky answered. "We’re filthy."

   "Speak for yourself, sex maniac," said Hutch, pulling at the hand still absently fingering him. But he spoiled the effect by turning his head and kissing Starsky’s throat.

   "You know what it’s like," said Starsky thoughtfully, "it’s like the times I’ve been doing it all night long but still don’t want to stop. The feeling’s there but nothing’s happening."

   Hutch held him closer and they looked at each other from an inch or two’s distance, an idea dawning. "What went on at that ceremony, while we were drugged?" Hutch said, but Starsky was beginning to think they both knew.

    After a pause, Starsky said hesitantly, "Hutch ... do you think we, you know, did it with each other? Or ...?"

   Hutch didn’t answer right away either. "You think?" he said at last.

   "I’m too embarrassed to think," Starsky confessed.

******

   His sleeping mind knew no embarrassment and had lost no memory.

   Drumming, he heard drumming, a rippling sound that quickened his breath and moved his arms and legs. He was dancing. He was shaking. He was laughing and calling out words whose shapes gave pleasure in his mouth but meant nothing. His ears were stuffed with something. A hat jumped on his forehead. The candle flames danced, the smoke danced from people’s mouths and up to the ceiling, a slow snaking movement. There was skin under his hands. His own. Another. Dark. Lighter. Looser. Softer. The floor seemed to move like the sea, and that made him angry. He growled around the flesh in his mouth.

    He could see the beams of the roof. They were painted with spiral patterns, hung with grass bunches, bones, skulls. Hanks of hair in many colors. Under his shoulders was a roughness like sand and a solidity like wood. Many hands were touching him. His hips were moving, dancing still, and the drumming had not stopped. A cloth touched his neck where the sweat ran, his chest just beside a sudden sharp pain. He tried to sit up but hands pulled his shoulders down, and a pair of breasts descended to his face, rubbed both his cheeks at once.

    He was thrusting up and the body over him rocked, lifted and pressed, then as he roared his pleasure the other suddenly left him, and a cloth covered the end of his cock as he came.

   He shivered. He was sitting with his back to the wall. The drums still beat, the air still swirled with smoke and smells and the movement of the dancers. Someone else was there, in the center, someone else was dancing in a blur of brightness and grace that hurt to look at. Hair like sunshine. Skin like moonlight. Legba. Legba. Too beautiful to bear. He clenched his teeth and his fists and tried to stand on legs that shook and gave at the knee. He couldn’t. And now there was a hand on his forehead, pushing back the hat, and a deep voice crooned, "Ghede, you are with us, Ghede, you’ll have what you want. Yes, have the light, eat the light, kill it. Soon. The dark shall kill the light."

    But then the light turned, eyes focussing, moving for him, dancing for him to see. Beautiful, sensuous ... the other dancers made a wheel around him, and as they passed, the vision of light flashed and vanished and flashed again, but always turned toward him. The white arms like wings outstretched to him. The white feet treading a pattern for him. Dark hands stroked the light, trailed through the blond hair, reached under the orange and white cloth, open to show the smooth chest above, the red erection below. "Gate," the light said clearly.

    "Legba!" he shouted.

   "Starsky. Wake up. Come on, buddy, we gotta go talk to Godfrey. We can’t waste the whole day." Hutch was rubbing little circles on Starsky’s bare shoulders. He saw a rugby shirt above him, orange and black, with a white collar that was the only thing in the room brighter than Hutch’s hair. "That’s good, that’s right, wake up," and Hutch sat back, one hand trailing diagonally across Starsky’s chest.

   Starsky lurched up into a sitting position, brushed Hutch’s hands away, and covered his own face.

    "Okay?" asked Hutch after a moment.

    "Yeah, yeah," Starsky answered, not moving. His cupped hands held darkness to the skin of his eyelids.

   The mattress rocked and ended higher than it had begun. Hutch’s voice was farther away. "Then put on some clothes." Distance in the tone.

   Starsky knew he’d done that and wondered why it didn’t bother him more.

******

    Seeing Johnny Doors die outside the police headquarters was the most frightening thing Starsky could remember. He was personally, selfishly, childishly afraid, in the same way as when he was a kid, when after a bad nightmare he used to lie in his bed sideways so he could get the headboard behind his back, pull the covers all out so he could wrap them completely around himself, even over his head, and just lay shaking, scared to sleep and scared to be awake. Spooked. It was babyish.

   But here he was, a grown man, and he could hardly keep himself together to act like one. He wanted to be held, wanted to be covered up, wanted to walk out of a movie house or close a book and be done with it. He couldn’t. It made him angry.

   He looked over at Hutch, who was all shining and controlled—yeah, concerned too, but the same way as if it had been any car accident—and irritation burned in his stomach as if he’d eaten something bad.

   Back at the hotel he said, "’M goin’ for a swim," barely able to be civil.

   "We need to make plans," Hutch said. "We can’t just charge in, you know that."

    "Later."

   Hutch began to open his mouth, and Starsky just didn’t want to hear it. "Later!"

   He grabbed the ugly, old-man swimming trunks he’d bought for Fred Night out of the drawer, and put them on without even checking to see if Hutch was watching him. Threw a shirt on, grabbed a towel, and headed for the door.

    Actually, Hutch had been gazing out the sliding doors to the porch and the courtyard, but he turned when Starsky came out of the bedroom. "You wearing that?"

    "Swim trunks," Starsky explained. "For swimming. You know."

   "I meant with that Hawaiian shirt." Hutch sighed. "No, I’m wrong, it’s in character. Next time can we be guys that aren’t color blind?"

    Hutch against the sunlit porch was a sight to make Starsky feel better, even at the moment. He smiled a little. "And not garbage men either."

    "No." Hutch looked back out the window.

   Starsky had an impulse to ask Hutch to come swimming too, in Ed Day’s equally ugly trunks, just to see him in the full sunlight.

    "Are you going or not?" Hutch asked without moving.

    "Yeah. Got my key," Starsky said, and left.

   And was it the swimming or the fear or something else that made him so bushed afterward that he couldn’t see straight? Trying to make plans with Hutch, trying to focus on the map’s tiny writing while Hutch lay on his back on top of the bedclothes with his shirt open and one knee raised, he didn’t know whether he wanted to throw the map on the floor and ravish Hutch, or rip open that spot in his skull that throbbed so badly when he looked over his shoulder at his partner. God, he had to sleep. His head was killing him, and his eyes burned, and he couldn’t tell whether the plan made sense or not. The other bed looked better than Hutch, that’s how badly off Starsky was.

   Then was it part of the dream that ended with Theodore and his box, or did he really half-wake to the sounds of Hutch moaning, breathing hard, the bed squeaking?--and he squinted, and saw Hutch nude and kneeling, facing him, pumping away as if he’d been doing it for a long time already. He looked like a dream, like a ghost. He said "Starsk ..." and Starsky tried to roll up on his elbow, say something, but he couldn’t move. Hutch’s head was back and he tossed it back and forth. "Damn," Hutch groaned, and Starsky knew he couldn’t get there, couldn’t let go, and that was worse than going limp at the wrong time.

   Well, maybe not. Starsky slid a hand down to touch his own flaccid cock. He could move that much, but there was nothing doing there. Hutch threw himself on his back and hit the bed with his fists. Starsky was sucked back into sleep as if it were a sea-current too strong for him to fight. And dreamed of Papa Theodore offering him death in a box. He didn’t know whether it was his own or Hutch’s death. Couldn’t tell the difference.

******

   In the middle of the next night, he woke, gasping for air as if he’d been running hard or holding his breath. Hutch was asleep in the other bed.

   Starsky had dreamed, this time, of trying to kill Hutch—the attack he couldn’t remember, jumping Hutch in the dust and trying to choke him, then forcing them both off the cliff into the ocean. In the dream he felt everything—the crazy rage, the tendons and veins under his hands, Hutch thrashing and gasping his name—but he didn’t know whether that was really the way it had happened, or just his imagination putting together what Hutch had said afterward. He wished Hutch were awake to tell him.

   But no, he didn’t really, not when he saw how deeply Hutch was sleeping. He’d turned on his side again, one arm hanging off the bed, his face half hidden in the pillow, his bare shoulder striped with moonlight. The little slice of light crossed the pillow too, and Starsky thought Hutch had probably rolled away from it in his sleep.

   Starsky sat up on the edge of the bed, leaned his elbows on his knees, and just looked for a long time, while Hutch took deep sleeping breaths and the moon sneaked though the curtains. Just a little faint glow in the blond hair. That white patch on his shoulder, just like alabaster. The face so relaxed it lost all its lines and became a child’s. He looked safe.

   Eventually, Starsky got up and went to the window to pull the curtains tighter together. He peeked through the crack first, just to check that there wasn’t anything awful hanging out there, this time, and then twitched at the fabric on one side, then the other. The little plastic hooks squeaked as they slid along the aluminum track, and the sound seemed twice as loud as it really was. Starsky froze and listened, but Hutch was still breathing evenly.

    It had been very little light, but now that it was gone, the room was black; Starsky had to wait a minute to let his eyes re-adapt. Gradually he could see Hutch again, though less clearly. Just a shape in the dark.

   He felt like he had when he’d first come to in the water, when Hutch had told him what he’d done, and after, when they climbed back up the cliff to the ruined fort: he wanted to keep touching Hutch to make sure he really was unhurt, still there, all right, not dead and not bewitched. Safe. He was safe; he was sleeping, and still Starsky ached to touch him and be sure.

    But that would wake him, and he was so tired. So was Starsky, for that matter. He moved back toward his own bed, went too far to his right and walked smack into the bedframe, banging his toes hard against the wood. "Shitshitshit!" he whispered. These little things always hurt more than he expected.

    "Starsk?" Now Hutch was sitting up, turning his head from side to side, disoriented. "Starsky? You okay?"

   "Yeah, buddy, go back to sleep. Just stubbed my toe, ‘s nothin’."

   "Wha’d’ya doin’ up?"

   Starsky smiled in the dark; poor Blintz really was half-asleep still. "Closing the curtain. Hsh, lie down, I’m goin’ back to bed."

   But instead, Hutch swung his legs over, turning, and reached for Starsky as he walked between the beds. "C’m’ere a minute."

   Well, since Hutch was awake, Starsky wouldn’t argue. He held the tousled head against his chest and smoothed down the unruly hair. Moved his hand around Hutch’s ear, still so warm from being buried in the pillow, and down to the neck, where he stroked even more gently, back and forth. "I’m sorry," he said softly, then laid his cheek against the warm silk. "Sorry."

   Hutch held him tighter. "I knew you’d feel bad," he said, still sleepily, "but it wasn’t your fault, buddy. Really."

   Starsky shuddered, only partly because the night chill was getting to him. "I could’ve really hurt you," he said.

   "Nah." Hutch tilted his head back. Starsky could see his teeth, so he was smiling. "I’m bigger than you are, punk."

    Starsky gave him a push, but when Hutch fell back he pulled Starsky with him, and they ended up sprawled together on the bed. Starsky tried to sit up, but Hutch held on. "Stay," he said.

   "I’m freezing," Starsky answered. "Get off the covers." So they both got up and then both lay down again, cuddled together, sharing a pillow. Hutch gave Starsky a somewhat sloppy kiss near the temple, and Starsky turned and kissed him back on the mouth, but gently. They were both too tired, again, and this time they knew it.

   "Sleep now," said Hutch, and they both did. And Starsky didn’t dream at all.

******

   The next morning, Starsky slipped away while Hutch was still giving his statement at the police headquarters, and found Huggy. "Take me back to see your aunt Minnie," he said, and when Huggy tried to talk his way out of it, Starsky pulled in his chin and stared harder. "Don’t mess with me today, Hug," he said. "I ain’t in the mood. Just take me there."

    So they both climbed into the multicolored taxi that Huggy had acquired, and rattled away into the jungle.

   This time Minnie turned to look as they came in, ducking the bunches of dry grass, skulls on cords, gourds and other things hanging from the ceiling, moving around the furniture, the altars, the decorated poles holding up the roof. Starsky went straight to her table and tossed down the little sack of herbs she’d sold him. "This didn’t work," he said. "Now are you a phony or just not as strong as Papa Theodore?"

   "Starsky!" Huggy gasped, but Starsky held Minnie’s eyes.

   "You’re alive," she said in her deep voice, "ain’t you?"

    Starsky gritted his teeth, then unlocked them and said, "I almost hurt Hutch. We both got a face-full of that magic drug dust stuff, but he was fine when he came to ... and I ... later .... How come I was the one with the amulet and he was the one who was himself the whole time?"

   Now she was the one to pull in her chin and stare up under her eyebrows. He had to admit it was an intimidating expression. "The whole time?" she asked at last, and it was strange, but Starsky knew what she was asking, though she didn’t use the words.

   "At first," he said, "it was like we had convulsions, we both fell down on the floor and rolled around .... I couldn’t control anything. Hutch either, I guess. Then I ... just didn’t know anything more, and when we came to, we were in the waves, like we were washed up on the beach."

   "Possessed," she announced, so seriously that Starsky didn’t bother trying to decide whether he believed it. She did. And it had been in that book he’d read. "Who was it?"

    "How should I know?"

   "A petro, if he don’t tell you." She nodded. "Then, right, this garde—" she poked the little pale bag with one finger—"won’t do if a petro is riding you."

   "What will work?" He was beginning to feel angry again. "I coulda hurt Hutch. That’s not happening any more."

    "You need a stronger lwa, to protect you, ride you instead."

   "I don’t want anybody to ‘ride’ me!" As the words left his mouth, an involuntary memory hit him—Hutch rocking above him, holding his hands, eyes shut and mouth open, Starsky saying ‘ride it, yeah, ride it hard’—and he wrenched his mind back to voodoo with an effort.

   Minnie’s eyes snapped wide open and she stared at him as if she knew. Starsky stared back. After a moment, she said, "That. Hasn’t happened since the ceremony. With anybody, or just with him?"

   Huggy, across the room, jerked his head up and stared too. Starsky thought of saying, ‘what hasn’t happened?’ or ‘who’s "him"?’ but he looked into Minnie’s eyes and it didn’t seem worthwhile. He swallowed. Shook his head.

    "Erzulie," she said. "You need Erzulie."

   "What’s an ur-zoli?" Starsky had noticed a long time ago that nothing got an explanation faster than mispronouncing the thing he was asking about. Sometimes, of course, he didn’t do it on purpose. Now he did, and it worked.

   "She is your patron, your special lwa. Call on her. Maybe your partner did that, maybe she just came to him, or sent someone, that’s why Papa Theodore had no power over him. I can make a ceremony for you, praise her, call her to you."

    He could see that glint in her eye again, the same one she had when she offered them the bag, and knew that no matter how sincere she was, she was also thinking of making money. "How long would that take? How much would it cost?"

    "A day or two. Get everything together." And she stopped: clearly she wanted him to say yes before she told him the cost.

   "Oh no. We won’t be here that long." Not if he had anything to say about it.

   Now she reached out, one long-fingered hand, slowly, and tapped him on the chest. "You think the lwa won’t find you if you go home? You think if you pull the covers over your head, they go away?"

   "This kin’a crazy shit never happened before," he said.

    "Now it has happened."

   "Once. And Papa Theodore’s gonna be put away. So how can it happen again?"

   She just looked at him. Straight in the eye, then down and up as if she were checking him out, except there was nothing sexual about it. "You came here to tell me there’s no problem?"

   Of course he hadn’t, but he’d hoped .... "Don’t you have some kind of amulet for this?"

    She shrugged. "Candles, you can burn them. I got herbs for a purification wash ... I can tell you how to build an altar."

   Starsky just shook his head. None of these were original ideas, and the altar thing didn’t sound good to him. While he was still chewing it over, the door rattled and then was slammed open. A young man was panting as if he’d run all the way from town, and leaning on the frame.

   He swallowed, then managed to speak. "Mambo Minnie!" Another deep breath. "Mambo Minnie—Papa Theodore, he escape! Jus’ vanish!"

    She set her jaw, shaking her head. Then she looked at Starsky, but he had only one thought.

   "Huggy, we gotta get out of here—c’mon, gotta find Hutch!"

   "Wait!" Minnie called after them, but Starsky couldn’t.

******

   Huggy was tense and silent in the cab. Silence was unusual for Hug, even given the circumstances. He seemed angry. It got on Starsky’s nerves, which were strung pretty tight anyway.

    "Okay, Hug, what is it? Theodore?"

    After a pause, Huggy said quietly, "You never told me."

   "About the—about me attacking Hutch? C’mon, Huggy, I knew you’d freak. Remember after Nadasy, the vampire thing? I thought I’d never hear the end of it from you."

   "No. I mean, yeah, you coulda told me that, and I’d appreciate being kept slightly up to date and not just bein’ some kinda chauffeur service. But what I meant was, you never told me about you and Hutch." He paused, and Starsky couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound too stupid. "Thought we were friends," said Huggy.

   "It’s not," Starsky blurted, "not something we talk to anybody about."

    "Am I anybody?"

   "No, Hug ..." but of course that was sort of what he’d meant.

   "Anyway, you think you’ve been keeping it secret? Let me tell you. Only reason I didn’t assume all along you guys were gettin’ it on is that we were friends. I thought you wouldn’t leave me guessin’. ‘Bout something this important."

    "Is it?" Starsky had to know. "So important to you? Hug?"

   "Course it is," said Huggy, voice rough. "How do you think I know now? You ain’t the only one in this cab Minnie told to ask Erzulie’s help! I know what she means by it."

    All Starsky could think of to say was "Oh."

   "Oh," Huggy parroted, and drove like a maniac down the dirt road, into town. Starsky just held on. It wasn’t like he wanted Huggy to slow down, but he did have a new appreciation of how Hutch felt when he started burning rubber himself.

    They were almost there when it dawned on Starsky that it might be quite a while before they talked again, if he and Hutch got a quick flight out. "Huggy, I ...."

   Huggy slid his eyes sideways but didn’t move otherwise.

   "I’m sorry, Hug. Really. We’ll talk later, huh? When we’re all home?"

   "Be a while. I gotta lie low, not get the magic man’s attention, you dig? Sell the taxi, stuff."

    "Sure. Of course."

   They pulled up in front of the police headquarters, blocking the street, and a car pulled up behind them and beeped its horn; there was no time now. But Huggy’s long mouth relaxed, and he looked at Starsky with a kind of fond exasperation rather than rage. "I’ll be over it by then. And you know it."

    "I sure hope so," Starsky confessed. And Huggy smiled.

******

   Godfrey hadn’t even mentioned Theodore’s escape to Hutch before Starsky got there and began to call airlines from the phone on the desk. It was easy to convince Hutch that they had to get off the island in the first rush of unreasonable fear. But Hutch hated long plane flights—there was never enough room for his arms and legs—and the only one Starsky could get was a very long one, with all those stops and two plane changes. The one Hutch had booked was over three hours shorter, though it was three days later, too. Starsky knew this argument wasn’t over.

   And then as they left the police headquarters, Starsky saw him. Papa Theodore. That face was hanging in the air, and the sound of that evil laughter shook Starsky’s bones, and his legs suddenly had no strength in them. If Hutch hadn’t caught him, he would have fallen down the stairs. "Buddy?"

    "Oh god." He backed against the wall. Hands flat on the stone. Pushing his shoulders into it. He closed his eyes.

    "Starsky?"

   "Oh Hutch." Now he could see the face printed on his eyelids, and he gasped and tried to open them but couldn’t. You belong to me, said Theodore’s voice, which he knew was not there but was so loud that it covered Hutch’s.

   "—on, Starsk, talk to me."

   Starsky pushed blindly away from the wall into Hutch’s arms. "He’s here, he’s here," he said, but clenched his fists and tried to stand alone. It was a fraud. He knew what was holding him up, and it was the big hand on the side of his face and the other one above his elbow. He could open his eyes now, too, because he knew what he’d see, and there Hutch was, head a little bent and eyes full of emotion.

   "He’s not here, Starsky," Hutch said very gently.

   "I know, but he is," Starsky blurted. He could hear flute music. He was shaking. "You—you don’t hear him." His teeth were really chattering, something that hadn’t happened since Nam.

   "No, I don’t hear him," Hutch said, but kept hold of Starsky anyway. In fact he gripped both arms, tighter than ever, and turned Starsky slowly to face the street. "Look. Do you see him now?"

   It was just possible Theodore was physically there, so Starsky looked hard. Couldn’t see the black top hat or the shell necklace or the flash of the big bone earring, couldn’t see anybody with Theodore’s height and his broad shoulders and bald head.

   "See the sun?" Hutch said, as if talking a kid out of a nightmare. "See all these ordinary people? The traffic? Hear the street musician?" Starsky could, though he couldn’t find him; it was a steel drum, maybe around the corner or down the block.

   He shook off Hutch’s grip and stepped away, ashamed of himself. "Yeah, okay, I see it. Thanks. I’m okay now." He started down the stairs, but Hutch didn’t follow until he turned to look.

   They flagged a taxi, not Huggy’s, and got into it. Neither spoke. Starsky was still frightened and kept replaying the little scene over in his mind. At least he hadn’t been—well, possessed—he remembered everything and hadn’t tried to hurt Hutch—but what about the next time? He wanted to be on that plane now. He tried not to remember Minnie saying, ‘You think the lwa won’t find you if you go home?’

   It was Hutch who brought it up. "I don’t think we can just leave tonight, can we?"

    Starsky had to admit it. "No."

   Back at the hotel, the young woman who’d told them she was called ‘Pussycat’ stopped them on their way through the lobby. "You guys got a message," she said. "From a—" she made a show of looking at a little piece of paper, and reading the name as if it were bafflingly complex—"Mam-boe Minnie. She wants you to contact her. Right away. I mean, she sounded real urgent."

   "Okay," said Starsky, taking the paper from her. Then remembered to drawl and give Fred Night’s big, meaningless grin. "Thank you, little lady!"

    It never had seemed to convince her, or any of the other girls, even at first. Starsky escaped gratefully into the elevator.

    In their room, Hutch collapsed onto the sofa and rubbed his face. Starsky sat next to him, aware that they had a lot to talk about but not sure where to start.

   "Why’s Minnie calling us?" asked Hutch.

   "I went to see her," Starsky answered. "That’s where I was when I found out about Theodore. She wants to do a ceremony for us."

    "She wants us to pay her."

   Starsky didn’t disagree, but added, "I think she does mean it."

   Hutch put a hand through his hair. "I don’t believe in any of this!"

   Starsky opened his mouth but Hutch turned and tapped him on the chest with one finger. "No. Let me talk. Let me say this. It’s not that I’m not scared. I’m real scared, Starsk. Shitless. Okay? When you—you—on the stairs—"

    "Wigged out?"

   "Whatever. Damn, that was frightening. You were so scared. I didn’t know what you were gonna do. Attack me, run into the street ...."

   "I didn’t know either."

   Hutch’s finger dropped, and his head sagged too. Starsky gathered the big, warm body close, and Hutch hugged back. The damp scent of Hutch’s neck, the sweeter, sun-warmed smell in his hair, made Starsky feel so safe that his brain began to work, something he felt hadn’t happened since before he went to see Minnie. After some time, raising his head just enough not to get the gold strands in his mouth, he said, "I don’t think it matters whether we believe it or not. People are acting like it’s true. We’re--well, I’m—acting like it’s true. People were dying like it was true before we even got involved. That’s what we’re about, here, stopping that." He rubbed Hutch’s spine, up and down. "I’ll cancel those plane tickets."

    "No," said Hutch, surprising him. "Anyway, not from here." He sat up. "Sounds like Aunt Minnie has a phone. Might be safer."

   "Let’s check out. And not tell Godfrey, either."

    "Good idea. Starsk, a man cannot disappear into thin air, out of jail. I just do not believe it."

   Starsky nodded. Someone must have helped Theodore. It would have been easy for Godfrey. Also, Starsky was bothered that the police chief hadn’t told Hutch right away about the escape. Something very fishy there.

    Hutch got up and went over to the sliding doors, fingered the handle as if he were thinking of going out on the porch, but instead just stood, head bent. Starsky wondered if he knew how the sun made him glow, lit him up as if from inside, like a lamp, or like a saint in one of those old pictures in museums. Too beautiful to bear.

   "We don’t have to check out right away, do we?"

   "Why, is there—" Hutch met his gaze and the question trailed off. He cleared his throat. "No."

   "No you don’t want to?"

   "No," Hutch smiled, "there’s no hurry. Hotel thinks we’re staying and Godfrey thinks we don’t leave for hours."

   "Hours, huh? I like the sound of that." Starsky got up, slowly, from the couch, and walked over to share Hutch’s patch of sunshine. He couldn’t tell whether the warmth all around him was the sun, or Hutch’s body, or his own arousal, but it all blended together and felt better than anything had for days. He touched the back of Hutch’s hand, lightly, remembering the touch on his face that had supported him, and dragged his fingers slowly up over the bone of his wrist, into the hair of his forearm. Slid around to the bare inside of the arm where Hutch’s skin was so smooth that the touch was like a drug—he couldn’t stop drawing little lines and curlicues with his fingertips. He could see the shapes in his mind—where had he really seen lines like that? A cross, ovals, stars, connected like this .... Hutch’s fingers played at the nape of his neck, around onto his throat, and he shivered.

   "Are we really going to take hours?" Hutch asked. Moved closer. His breath was on Starsky’s face, his thumb circled on Starsky’s cheek, and his voice fell to a throaty whisper. "Just to get started?"

   "Babe," said Starsky, and reached up the inch or so to take that soft mouth. He’d meant to kiss briefly but once he had Hutch, he couldn’t let him go even to speak to him. He sucked on the upper lip and then the lower one, played with Hutch’s tongue, invaded and owned the space of his mouth. Knew he was getting rougher, harsher, but couldn’t stop, too hungry to slow down even a little. And Hutch began to push, lean in, dive into Starsky’s mouth until it was almost like fighting. Their fingers dug into each other’s flesh, and they pressed together so hard that it was taking most of Starsky’s strength not to fall back. And for some reason he couldn’t. He could not give way, not this time.

   He shifted his feet, shoved again, and Hutch had his back against the glass door. The kiss finally broke. Starsky was in Hutch’s shadow and Hutch’s hands were in his hair. He fumbled with Hutch’s shirt buttons and couldn’t open them, so he just grabbed the shirt on each side and tore at it until the buttons began to pop and the fabric gave. Starsky nuzzled down into the gap at the neck, pinched up skin with his teeth, bit down. Hutch pulled at his head but Starsky didn’t stop. He bit Hutch’s collar bone and then up on his neck, ground their hips and erections together and growled in his throat.

   The sound seemed to turn Hutch on even more, because he wrapped his arms around Starsky and lifted him enough to rush him back to the couch, dump him over the arm and fall on top of him. Starsky squirmed furiously until he was on top. Hutch was busy unbuttoning, tugging on Starsky’s zipper, lifting the hem of his shirt, but neither would pull back long enough to take anything off. Starsky thrust one leg between Hutch’s and they rubbed against each other like teens, Starsky’s shirt bunched up under his arms and Hutch’s thin silk ripping. Cotton and denim and khaki and whatever underwear Hutch was wearing came between their cocks, not to mention the hard ridges of both zippers, and the discomfort didn’t matter either. Starsky clenched his jaw and pushed his forehead into Hutch; yellow and orange swirled in his closed eyes and he ached and burned for orgasm. He was hard as rock. So was Hutch. They writhed and humped as if they’d never have another chance.

    On and on. It felt good, but not good enough, and not getting off was driving Starsky crazy. "Damn it! Damn it! Make me come!"

   "I’m trying! Don’t you think I want it too?" Then Hutch’s body stopped moving, lay tense and hot under Starsky, who gradually stopped thrusting too. They breathed deeply and got hold of their frustration. "Maybe," said Hutch, "maybe we were just trying to go too fast. We could go in to bed, get naked, take our time." He wiped sweat-logged hair away from Starsky’s face, moved his hand around the hairline to the back of his neck.

    Starsky shuddered. He pounded the sofa cushion, then the padded arm beyond, with his fist. "Fuck!"

    "That an invitation, Starsk?" Hutch sounded amused.

    Starsky bit his shoulder right through the shirt, as hard as he could.

   "Starsky!" Hutch clipped him on the side of the head and pulled him off. "What the fuck’s the matter with you?"

    The matter was that he wanted to howl like a dog and hump like one too, and there was no way to dispel this wildfire energy. It roiled inside him like rage, insane and painful. Hutch sat up, carrying Starsky with him, and shook him. "Snap out of it!"

   Starsky closed his eyes and tried, really tried. Hutch did the one perfect thing, as he so often did when Starsky needed something very much that he couldn’t say. This time Hutch was completely still. No more questions, no more of the stroking that just made Starsky crazier, no argument or rationalizing, nothing. Quiet. Both of them began to breathe more slowly—in unison, as a matter of fact, though Starsky only gradually realized it. His erection subsided in its own time. The sunlight lay on his back, and Hutch’s hands relaxed on his shoulders. He could hear birds and remote noises of people at the pool. He opened his eyes and gazed into Hutch’s.

    "Okay," he said, and Hutch stopped looking so anxious. They separated, moving back to opposite ends of the couch.

    "There was no reason for that, Hutch."

    "No kidding."

   "No, I mean, we weren’t tired or anything. I think—" it sounded absurd, and he hesitated—"I think it’s, you know, the same thing. As the attack and stuff."

   Sure enough, Hutch got that disgusted college-boy-at-peasant look. "We’ve got a voodoo curse, that’s what you’re trying to say?"

   "I’m trying to say I won’t feel good till we see Minnie." Starsky tried to look as wan and confused as he really felt.

    Make it a mother-hen issue, and sure as shit, Hutch would cave. "Okay, Starsk, if you need to. Right now?"

   "Well," he looked down Hutch’s ravaged clothing, "I think we’d better change first."

   "Yeah," Hutch lifted a torn shirttail. "This trip’s been hell on the wardrobe."

    "Most of this wardrobe is hell, period." Starsky stood up. His own clothes were rumpled but not damaged. Still, he wanted a shower.

   "What, you don’t like pastel plaids? And those straw hats?" Hutch was laughing at him, and he hunched a shoulder in a mock-sulk, feeling much more like normal.

   But he knew it wouldn’t last.

******

   Hutch swung the towel off his shoulders and picked up the Hawaiian shirt he’d laid out, and Starsky stared at the red crescents on his shoulder. "Hutch," he said.

   Hutch looked at him, then rubbed the marks, cupping his hand over them so that Starsky no longer saw them. "Starsk, don’t," he said, and was about to go on when the door rattled with frantic-sounding knocks.

    Hutch slipped the shirt on; Starsky went for the door, touched the chain and asked, "Who is it?"

   "Me," said Huggy’s voice.

   "Huggy?" He unfastened the chain, opened the door, and then shut it again after Huggy rushed in. "What are you doing here? We were gonna—"

   "You," said Huggy, "are gonna get packed up and come with me. Aunt Minnie says, go get those white boys and be sure they don’t stay another night in that hotel."

    "So where are we going?" Hutch came out of the bedroom, buttoning his shirt.

   Huggy looked him up and down, and then Starsky. "Have you two got a thing to wear that don’t hurt the unsuspecting eye? Not ten different colors? Plain?"

   "Are you feelin’ okay, Hug?" Starsky joked; Huggy’s own style of dress could hardly be called ‘plain.’ But Huggy obviously wasn’t in the mood.

   "White clothes. Got ‘em?"

   "Wore ‘em yesterday," said Hutch. "They’re not white now. Why?"

   "Minnie says. You’ll need ‘em for the ceremony. Okay, we’ll stop to get some. But the first thing is to get you free and clear of this ... place."

   It was no harder than leaving any hotel. The young woman behind the desk turned big doe eyes on them and asked whether they had been unhappy about anything, so both Hutch and Starsky assured her that their stay at the Playboy had been one of the highlights of their lives. By the time they’d checked out, the luggage had already been loaded into Huggy’s cab—Starsky didn’t dare ask whether the girl bellhops had done it or whether Huggy had—and they careened away.

   They stopped, not at the market or even at the touristy boutiques nearby, but on a narrower street where local men must shop. The detectives bought short-sleeved shirts and white slacks, and since Huggy insisted, white deck shoes. Huggy disappeared for a while and then returned with white squares of material that looked like dish towels, and some other stuff as well, in a net bag. Then Huggy made them return to the market and buy some picnic food, and also flowers, bead necklaces and sweets. "For Erzulie," Huggy said, which made no real sense to Starsky even though he remembered the name; certainly Hutch couldn’t have understood. But neither asked questions in the face of Huggy’s urgency.

   He didn’t take them to Minnie’s afterward, either, but along a shore road where they saw cane fields and wild growth and bare rock on one side and got glimpses of sky and sea on the other, between trees and houses, garages and fences.

    "Pretty built up here," said Hutch. "Comparatively."

   "Uh-huh," said Huggy. "Some rich folks’ vacation houses, some rental places. Aunt Minnie manages the one where I’m takin’ you two. Owner’s ... the owner is employed elsewhere. And he trusts Minnie, like most folks around here do."

   "So that’s her day job." Hutch sounded amused.

   "Look, blondie, when you were a golden-haired tyke and went to a little church in the corn fields—" Hutch shook his head but Huggy went on—"the good reverend there got paid by the congregation, a regular salary. Minnie does not. So yeah, she has a day job."

   "It’s none of my business," said Hutch evenly. "Hug, did I do anything special to get under your skin or did you just get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"

   Starsky cleared his throat. "Minnie guessed that we ... you and I ... " They’d never talked about their sexual relationship as such and had no real name for it. ‘Lovers’ sounded soapy and ‘fuck-buddies’ crass. ‘Sex partners’ sounded like something in the Kinsey survey. ‘I like to get you naked and see you come’ wasn’t exactly how he wanted to put it in this particular conversation. "And he’s mad ‘cause we never told him," Starsky muttered, defeated.

    "Ah," said Hutch, but he looked like he was none too pleased either.

    They drove out from underneath the last in a line of trees right at the edge of the road, and there, down a slope and across a lawn, was a clear sight of the ocean. There was a single sailboat out in the deeper blue near the horizon, and the white edges of waves scored the closer, brighter-colored water. Banks of fluffy clouds hovered in the sky. Hutch would know what kind of cloud they were. A white peaked roof shone as bright as the remote sail.

   "That’s it," said Huggy.

   They drove past it for a surprisingly long way, because it was one of a whole line of beach bungalows for rent, and they all shared the same driveway, which connected to the road via a hairpin turn and a steep incline. The lawn they’d seen from the road was actually a communal one, and a long stair led from it down to the beach. Their bungalow faced away from the lawn, its own back yard overlooking the ocean. Inside it was light and airy, with blue and white striped upholstery on wicker furniture, and a bright abstract on the wall that had no window.

   "There’s two bedrooms," Huggy said, with a glance over his shoulder at them as they carried in luggage. "Near one has a double bed, the other has two twins."

    "The near one, by all means," Hutch said, his voice sarcastic. "We have to live up to our reputation."

    Starsky dumped the bags he was carrying in a confused pile on the coffee table and walked out again. There was no doing anything with Hutch in this mood.

    A narrow porch almost circled the house; Starsky followed it around to the back, hearing snatches of Hutch and Huggy talking through the windows as he passed them. At the end of the porch, Starsky discovered a yard edged with trees and close-planted bushes, where a couple of lawn loungers chummed together on one side and a hammock hung idly on the other. There was a fresh wind from the water and leaves were rustling. Birds called from the direction of the road. The waves whispered, barely louder than the leaves.

   If Hutch ever got over his snit, he’d love it here. Starsky walked over to the hammock, like a long net bag, and put his fingers though the mesh. The white cord was surprisingly soft.

   "Hey," said Hutch’s voice behind him. "Starsk. Come on inside." He sounded better, but not entirely recovered.

   Starsky stepped up onto the porch, passed Hutch with a few inches to spare, and went in glass sliding doors like the ones in the hotel suite. Inside was a breakfast nook and a miniature kitchen; Huggy was putting away food in a cupboard with three small shelves. The sink looked like a little girl should be washing doll dishes in it. The whole refrigerator would have fit inside Starsky’s picnic cooler at home.

   Starsky was now between Huggy’s unresponsive back and Hutch, who stood just inside the glass doors. Hutch said, "Huggy wants you to build an altar."

    "An altar," Starsky said.

   When Hutch did that repeating thing, it seemed to help. Starsky’s mind was as blank as before he said it.

   Huggy turned, the movement full of resignation. "Aunt Minnie’s preparing a ceremony for you. Meanwhile, with the magic meister out and about, she wants to give you somewhere safe to stay. This place will be safer from Theodore’s little spirit friends if you can rustle up some friends of your own. That’s what the altar’s for."

   "I’d rather be safe from Theodore because he was locked up," said Hutch.

   "You wouldn’t be safe from Theodore just ‘cause he was locked up," said Huggy, leaning against the sink. "Ain’t you been paying attention?"

   "I. Do not. Believe. In Voodoo." Hutch’s arms were folded and his eyes were like ice.

   "Then why put Theodore away at all? What’d you charge him on, traffic violations? Tax evasion?"

    Starsky sat at the little round table, put an elbow on it, and leaned his head on his hand. "I thought you guys were done with all that or I woulda stayed in the yard," he said.

   Hutch raised his index finger to wag it, and Huggy put up one hand, palm out. "Don’t even," he said. "Hutch, my friend, don’t even. You don’t want to deal, you go down to the beach and let me talk to m’man here. Okay?"

   Hutch wasn’t quite frowning but the crease between his eyebrows was deeper than usual. He let his hand drop, slowly, to his side, and then looked at Starsky.

   So often they didn’t need to speak to understand each other, but now Starsky couldn’t read the look, though he tried hard and Hutch gave him plenty of time. Then Hutch smiled a little, not very convincingly, and went out the sliding door, closing it so softly behind him that it made only the sliding noise of plastic wheels in the metal track.

   Chilled, Starsky turned to Huggy and said, "Let’s get this done."

******

    An hour or so later, Starsky went down the long whitewashed staircase to the beach. It spread out before him, flat and pale, and the water was such a vivid blue that he could hardly look at it.

   Hutch wasn’t in sight.

   Starsky began to walk, looking down, seeing the little whorled shells and smooth pebbles in the sand, along with bits of coral and sticks gone all ash-colored, like Hutch’s hair when it was in shadow. He picked up one perfect little cup of a shell, pink inside and white outside. Ahead was a rock jutting out almost into the water, narrowing the beach to a foot or two of sand—probably nothing at all at high tide. It was high as a wall and layered like a cake, brown and tan and white. Starsky put his hand out when he reached it, leaned there for a moment before looking around the end. And Hutch was there.

    He was sitting in the sand, long legs bent, his arms resting on his bare knees. His hair lifted and moved in the wind. Gilt against the dark-gold sand, he tilted his head and looked up at Starsky without speaking.

    Starsky sat down beside him. Handed him the little shell. Hutch looked at it, turning it over and rubbing it between his fingers before handing it back. "Pretty."

    The altar had pretty things on it, for Erzulie, whom Huggy said liked them. Starsky put the shell down on the sand.

    "Starsk," said Hutch at last, "you and Hug are weirding me out."

    "I know," Starsky said.

    "Am I the last rational person on this island?"

    Starsky shrugged.

    "Why, Starsk? Do you really believe it?"

    "I told you what I think."

   Hutch shook his head, and Starsky pulled up his knees, crossed his arms on them, put his chin on his arms. "Look," he said. "If Theodore’s just a psych case, then what happened at the top of the cliff? Tell me. Rational man. Or outside the police headquarters."

   Hutch looked out at the water and didn’t answer for a long time. "Hypnotism?" he said at last, uncertainly.

   "Okay," said Starsky. "Then I’ve been hypnotized by a criminal, and now I’m doing things to put me in a ... well, receptive ... frame of mind, and then Minnie’s gonna hypnotize me again. I don’t care what you call it, Hutch, or what she does. I want it to be over. I’ll do what I have to."

   Hutch reached across and laid one warm hand on Starsky’s arm above the elbow, just resting it there. "Okay," he said. "I can get behind that."

   "Good." Starsky stood up, catching Hutch’s hand as it fell away from his skin. "C’mon, lazybones, let’s go." Tugged him to his feet.

   They walked side by side across the communal lawn and talked about the resort golf course, and it was about five minutes of actual normality before they slipped through the hedge back into the little yard behind the bungalow, through the glass doors, and found Chief Godfrey in the front room, seated on the sofa as comfortably as if he’d been there for hours. "Ah, good," he said. "You are here."

    "How did you find us?" asked Starsky.

    The urbane smile widened. "This is my house," said Godfrey. "I own the whole group of properties. I suggested to Minnie that you should stay here."

   "And," Hutch said, drawing out the words, "you’re here now ... to ..."

   "Ask for your help," said Godfrey easily. "I have some identification photos I’d like you to look at, if you please."

   "Didn’t we do all that?" Hutch pressed him.

   "Yes, you looked at photos of the young ladies recruited from the resort for Miss Connery’s plot, and at photos of the professional gentlemen who so hotly pursued you. But I’d like you now to look at photographs of persons we suspect might have been at Papa Theodore’s ceremony."

   "Hey, now," Hutch protested. "We were out of it most of the time. Our IDs wouldn’t be any use in court anyway."

   Starsky looked curiously at his partner. This wasn’t like Hutch ... or wait, it was. Like Hutch protecting Starsky from having to do something that Hutch thought he wouldn’t be able to do.

    "Practicing voudon is not illegal," Godfrey answered. "If any of these people are charged with crimes, their incarceration will not depend on you."

   "Then—" Hutch began, but Starsky put a hand on his arm.

   Starsky wasn’t quite sure what was triggering this attack of hyper-protectiveness, but he wanted to nip it in the bud. "I think we could help you more if you told us more," he said quietly to Godfrey.

    "Ah, you mean sharing information," Godfrey said. "An interesting concept. Quite unfamiliar."

   "Are you gonna be mad about that forever?" Starsky said, forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t talking to Dobey or someone else who knew him. "And anyway, sharing goes both ways! Why not start now? If you’re not gonna pull these people in for being at the ceremony, why do you want them?"

   Godfrey sighed. It really did seem to hurt him to let go of information. On the other hand, if Starsky thought about times when he and Hutch had had to do the cooperation thing with cops from other departments, or Feds, he could see the police chief’s point of view.

   "I really have felt all along," Godfrey said, as if he’d read Starsky’s mind, "that we of the island can solve our own problems. Theodore is a case in point. Though he is himself a stranger to this island, his power is simply not one that the Federal agents, or you, are equipped to deal with in any effective way."

    "And you are?" asked Hutch.

   "While he was preoccupied with the arrest procedure, Minnie and I emptied his work room and the hut where his ceremonies were held," Godfrey said. "We broke his govi pot and scattered his altar .... really, there is little he can do at the moment, and his own broken promises will soon catch up to him. However, I still am troubled by his followers, who may be prepared to help him even now. He obviously is used to setting up shop, so to speak, in a short period of time, in a new place. In any case, I also want to get a sense for who among the islanders are willing to follow such a man. If there’s any similar trouble in future ..."

   "It would be useful to have a kind of priors file." It was obvious, once Godfrey pointed it out. Starsky was a little ashamed that they’d slipped into being suspicious of him so easily, even a second time.

   They looked at the photos, but most of the faces just seemed like people they might have seen in the street as easily as in the ceremony. Starsky sorted out a few that looked more familiar than that, and closed his eyes, trying hard to remember the glimpses he’d gotten of the dancers before his faceful of dust.

   "Starsky," said Hutch’s voice, tensely.

   "I’m just focusing," he said, but he opened his eyes, and they fell on one of the photos, a young woman, and the confused recollections fell into place with an almost audible snap. "This one," he said. "She was dancing—I remember. The way she moved. And she works in the hotel. She saw us come in, remember, Hutch?" He handed the photo to his partner, who looked at it narrow-eyed.

   "I remember her in the hotel," he said. "She had a cart of stuff. She looked like she recognized us, that’s why I remember." He looked at Godfrey. "Lousy evidence."

   "We shan’t take it to court, believe me." The older man took the photo and looked at it, a small crease between his brows. "Isobel. I wonder what she can be thinking of." He put the picture down on the coffee table and pulled the others on top of it as if they were playing cards he meant to shuffle. "Well, I shall ask her. Thank you, gentlemen."

    "You know the girl?" asked Starsky, though it was evident Godfrey did..

    "Yes," the man said slowly. "She is the fiancée of one of my men." He paused, then let them have it: "The man who was guarding Theodore when he escaped."

   Hutch’s exhalation was audible, and Starsky realized how comforted his partner was bound to be by this information. The ground felt firmer under Starsky’s feet as well. Nice to be dealing with crime again, not magic. Or not just magic.

   "We’d like to help," Hutch said, without having to so much as glance at Starsky. "May we sit in on the interrogation?"

   Godfrey didn’t answer right away. "My impulse is to say no," he said. "I feel she will say more to me than she would in the presence of strangers. But ... will you be satisfied to observe?"

   Hutch shrugged. "If that’s your best offer," he said with that corn-fed smile that charmed birds out of trees and fish onto hooks.

   "I am afraid so," said Godfrey, really seeming regretful. He got up from the couch and said, "I’ll telephone from here, if you gentlemen don’t mind."

   "It’s your house," Hutch said. Godfrey left the room.

PART TWO