Jat Sapphire

    At police headquarters, they stood in a tiny room with a slit low in the wall and a green-shaded lamp giving a little dim light on a desk behind them.

    "I was thinking more of a two-way mirror," said Starsky under his breath, but Godfrey gave him a quizzical look.

   "This is simply an older form of the same thing, isn’t it? A leftover of the colonial police force. It is still occasionally useful." The idea was somehow unpleasant; Starsky saw Hutch’s head come up and his eyes meet Godfrey’s. The islander said, "As is your mirror." And Hutch looked back at the slit.

   "Put the chairs where you like," Godfrey said, "but don’t move them again once you can see me through the aperture, and don’t speak to each other. The sound carries both ways."

   Then he left them alone in that grim near-darkness. Hutch reached behind him and grabbed the nearer folding chair, forcing Starsky to circle around to get the other one. They pulled them close to the wall, facing the slit, and when they sat their knees nudged each other, which was an odd sort of comfort. Starsky cast around in his mind for something to say before they couldn’t speak. "I hope he doesn’t ask her what happened at that ceremony," was the best he could do, but Hutch began to grin anyway.

   "Afraid you couldn’t keep up, buddy?"

    This was better; Starsky snorted.

   "Don’t wanna embarrass you," he said, and then Godfrey’s half-bald head appeared and Hutch shut his mouth, his chance to retort lost. That made Starsky grin all over again.

   But the humor didn’t last long. Isobel, who had twisted around the floor of Theodore’s hut like a wet-dream and eyed them over her cart like a detective, looked just a kid in her street clothes, and from this angle. She hung her head to one side and twisted her hands together, and generally looked like a fourth-grader being bawled out by a stern teacher.

   Didn’t hurt that Godfrey made one hell of a stern teacher. He started out sitting behind a little table, with an assistant to take notes. Then he got up and paced, sometimes nearer, sometimes farther away. He wasn’t a tall man, but he could still loom over her. As it went on, Starsky hoped about equally that Godfrey was getting useful stuff and that it would be over soon. Wasn’t anything he could see working with. He wondered what Hutch thought. But then, Godfrey asked what the point of it all was, what she had hoped to gain. That she couldn’t get from any old voodoo, Starsky supposed.

   Then she looked up with a fanatic’s light in her eyes and said, "We have the island. We have it, man, to us, us alone."

    "Oh, child," Godfrey said, and he leaned back against the little table. He took a long breath, but just repeated, "Oh, child."

   "He say," she insisted, and launched into a long account of what Theodore had said, much of which was gibberish to Starsky.

    Godfrey let her go on for a while, head bent, but abruptly he raised his hand and she stopped mid-word. He took the few steps to her chair and delicately lifted one of her hands from her lap. She let him, though she looked apprehensive.

    He turned it palm up and touched the calluses. "You work at the resort," he said softly. "Who owns it?"

    "That can be change," she answered.

    "Who comes to it?"

    She closed her fingers and her mouth set in a stubborn line.

    "Who buys the cane your father cuts? The souvenirs your mother sells?"

    She pulled her hand away, and he let it go.

    He put a hand under her chin and tilted it up. "Who," he said even more softly, so that Starsky had to strain to hear, "who brought Theodore here? Gave him orders?"

    They stared at each other for a while. Then Godfrey stepped back and Isobel hung her head. Godfrey went back to the table, walked around it, sat down, flipped through the folders in front of him, opened one.

   "Charlotte Connery," he read, as if thinking the absent woman over. He turned a page, laid the folder down, took a pair of reading glasses from his coat pocket and put them on. Then he read, "When apprehended, suspect stated that the arresting officers were in error, as," he glanced up over the rims of the glasses, "quote," he looked back at the page, "’This island belongs to me.’" He shut the folder, took off his glasses, folded them fussily, put them back in his pocket.

    "She crazy," said Isobel.

   "She doesn’t own the island, certainly," he agreed mildly. After a few seconds, he added, "Nor does Theodore."

    He gave her a longer pause.

   It was long enough to set Starsky fidgeting; he jiggled his leg. Hutch reached over and held down Starsky’s moving knee.

    "Where is he?" Godfrey asked conversationally.

   Isobel lifted her head and Starsky knew she’d talk.

   "Damn, he’s good," he said softly, and his mouth was shut by Hutch’s palm.

   Starsky made no attempt to pull it away, just looked at Hutch, feeling that exhilaration he always did when the right piece of information was just coming to them. Hutch’s own eyes were full of light, though he was trying to look exasperated and his lips were pursed in a ‘Shh’ shape.

   Energy rose in Starsky that he would normally have used in interrogation, or in rushing out to do something about the new info, running for the elevator or down a flight of stairs. He couldn’t do any of that now. Instead he opened his mouth, smiling, and licked Hutch’s hand.

   Hutch flinched away in surprise and then pressed back, fingers curling around Starsky’s chin; then that wet palm slid around to hold the back of his neck. Hutch’s face came closer and Starsky really thought he was going to be kissed right here in the police headquarters, which would be a first for them even though it wasn’t LA Metro and they were alone in the room. But really Hutch just touched his forehead to Starsky’s and said, "Devil," in a sort of whispering growl, and then bit the bridge of his nose lightly.

   A little kinkier than Starsky’s lick, in his opinion.

   But obviously this wasn’t the time to argue about that. "Get you later," he whispered instead, and nobody more than a few inches away could have heard it.

    "Count on it," Hutch breathed, and let him go.

    And meanwhile, Starsky knew they were both thinking, they would get Theodore.

******

   Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as that. Godfrey wouldn’t pick up Theodore, and he wouldn’t let Starsky and Hutch pick him up, either.

   They were in Godfrey’s office, which was familiar territory—even the placement of door and window was like Dobey’s at home, and so was the broad, flat, paper-covered desk, and the positions of the chairs. They stood together in front of the desk, while Godfrey was sitting, leaning back, and that was familiar too. He gave them reason after reason for not arresting Theodore—most of them weren’t familiar at all. There wasn’t really an applicable statute; he had no warrant; it would endanger Isobel; it would widen the rift in the community; it would ruin Minnie’s ceremony; the spirits would get him anyway. Hutch’s eyes got grimmer and grimmer with each one, and Starsky was getting pissed too.

   "Then what th—" he swallowed a curse just in time, feeling the police chief wasn’t the type to respond to it—"what was this all about, then?"

   And, he told himself, he was really getting tired of that broad grin of Godfrey’s, which seemed to be reserved for moments when he was getting what he wanted and Hutch and Starsky were choking with irritation.

    "I need to send him an invitation," said Godfrey smugly. "Without his suspecting it, of course."

    "An invitation," Hutch repeated, and his voice was dangerous.

    "Why, yes."

    "To what party?"

   "Why," said Godfrey again, his eyes wide open, as if he couldn’t understand how they could even ask, "to Mambo Minnie’s ceremony for you."

   And Hutch lost it, about one second before Starsky would have. He leaned forward, bracing both hands against the desktop and looking as though he were about to vault over it. "Are you out of your mind?"

   Chief Godfrey’s expression chilled, but he didn’t move any other muscle in face or body. "Not at all," he said. Starsky had to give him points for bravery. Hutch on the warpath was a daunting sight. His voice was still even when he went on, "You must allow me to know more about this specific situation than you possibly can."

   "But you’re not going to be there, are you? We’re going to be there. Like last time." Hutch wasn’t shouting any more, but he was still looming.

    "Let me assure you," said the police chief, "that this will be very little like the last time."

   Starsky certainly hoped that was true, but he couldn’t help but worry about it. He folded his arms, pulling in his chin, and looked at the police chief.

   If Hutch was going off the deep end, it was Starsky’s job to try and be the calm one. "My partner and me, we’re used to taking care of each other. Guarding each other’s backs. But at this ceremony, chances are, at least for me ... I’m probably gonna be out of it, least part of the time. Hutch won’t have backup. That’s bad enough, y’know. Without adding somebody to the mix who already has a grudge against us. And a lot of innocent bystanders. You gotta admit, just from a police point of view, it doesn’t sound good." He tried to nail Godfrey down with his eyes. "What can you give us here? So we won’t be just sitting ducks?"

    Godfrey sighed enormously. "I see that it must seem like that to you," he said. "Would it ease your mind if I posted some uniformed officers around the hounfort, on lookout?"

    "Would they keep Theodore out?" Hutch asked more calmly.

    "No. But they could keep out anyone else, if he brought anyone with him, and they could make sure he had no ordinary weapons with him."

    The partners shared a look, and this time Starsky had no trouble understanding it.

   "And if he’s got any of those dolls," he said to Godfrey, "could they take them too? I tell you, if I never see another voodoo doll, it’ll be too soon."

    Godfrey smiled. "I can arrange that."

   "And could we possibly do something? I tell you, I’m not happy sittin’ around waiting for it to get dark."

    "We-ell," said the police chief, "I was thinking of asking you to issue the invitation."

    Starsky glanced at Hutch and then said, "Acceptable," but felt his mouth curve up.

******

   At Minnie’s, Hutch looked at the thing on the table and folded his arms. Starsky leaned forward and looked more closely, getting a whiff of dry mustiness that made him pull back. "Is this ... real?" He felt a little foolish about the question, but he also wondered where she had gotten what looked a lot like a human skull. There was a big hole in the side of it, breaking the curve of the right eye and the cheekbone below. At the top of the dome was a heap of wax, the burned-down remains of a black candle; a broken piece of what might have been a flower pot propped open the jaw on one side.

    Minnie gave him a hard stare, then said, "You expect plastic and do-for-yourself kits with dolls and pins, you are in the wrong place."

   It was the first time he’d seen any likeness between her and Huggy. The thought turned up the corners of his mouth and made his eyes seek Hutch’s.

    "What are we supposed to do with it?" Hutch asked, but his arms opened to his sides and he looked a lot more willing to hear the answer than he had before.

   "Put it somewhere he will find it," she said. "The doorstep, the path, the window ... don’t mind where."

   "He’ll know it’s, uh, from you?" asked Starsky.

   "He’ll know what I want him to know."

   She also gave them instructions for that evening, packets of herbs to bathe in and another packet to burn while they got ready, along with protective oil to put on before they dressed up in their new white clothes. Hutch looked skeptical but said nothing, and when they got back to the unmarked police car they were driving, he dropped the bag over the back of the seat as if he meant to leave it there. Starsky made a mental note to retrieve it. The skull was in a box, brooding in the trunk—Starsky could just about feel it, the way he could feel when some perp they’d arrested was glaring at him from the back seat of the Torino. When they went over a few bumps and it shifted to the side, he heard the sound and knew just what it was.

   Meanwhile, though, it still felt good to drive himself again, to wear his piece and be on his way to do something constructive, even if it was more like burglary than police work at the moment.

    "Hey," he said to Hutch. "Beautiful day."

    Hutch smiled slowly, said, "Yeah, it is," and looked out the passenger side, looking more relaxed himself.

   It was mid-afternoon by this time, and they were driving south, inland. The sky and foliage around them were impossibly brightly colored; it felt like driving through a postcard. The sun lay across Hutch’s body, a warmth and glare in the edge of Starsky’s sight.

   "I wonder," said Hutch, "if there’s any chance of getting that fishing in after all."

   "Don’t see why not," Starsky answered. "Minnie and Godfrey’re talking like tonight’s the end, and that leaves those three days of yours free."

    "Right at this fork," said Hutch, who had the directions Godfrey had written them.

   It wasn’t a sharp turn, but the sun now reached across and just brushed Starsky’s arm with its heat. It was on the windshield, too, and Starsky had a harder time seeing the road. "There any sunglasses in the glove compartment?"

   Hutch popped it open and rooted in it; Starsky squinted and kept driving. He had to keep looking at the scenery to remind himself that they weren’t back home. The box shifted a little in the trunk, reminding him too by its small rasping sound, and then Hutch sat back up and said, "Sorry, buddy, this is the best we got." He held out a pair of shades, aviator shaped and otherwise in fairly good shape, that had the right lens missing.

   Starsky took them, and looked again. "Oh, great. Well, can’t say you never gave me nothing. But no," he shook the sunglasses until the earpieces folded shut. "I think I’ll pass." He grinned, then stuffed them in the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. "They match our friend back there. Maybe I’ll put ‘em on him when we drop him off."

   "Gonna draw a mustache on too?" Hutch laughed, a few brief chuffs. "I thought you were the one taking this seriously."

   Starsky looked at the road. "I’m not talking through all that again," he said.

   Hutch’s hand was on his shoulder, in the way that meant an apology. "No, okay."

   Theodore’s new hideout looked pretty much like the tiny bungalow he’d used on the Thorne estate, though this building was older and closely shaded by bushes. Looking in the windows would have been nearly impossible, and even the door was half-obscured. Hutch, carrying the box, leaned against one broad-based palm trunk, and Starsky peered around another, closer to the house.

    "He in there?" Hutch called softly.

   Starsky couldn’t see any light in the bungalow or hear movement; there wasn’t a vehicle anywhere nearby; yet, irrationally, he was certain Theodore was inside. "Think so."

   Then he heard the flute. Its sweet, dreamlike tone floated around them, lilted, fluttered. After a moment, Starsky said to Hutch, "Yeah," and glanced over to find his partner staring at him. He realized he was practically lying against the sloping trunk, so relaxed he could just slide down to the ground. He lifted his head, which seemed heavier than usual. A lot. "Hutch." He meant to sound comforting—he was okay and it wouldn’t be hard to drop off the thing in the box—but Hutch didn’t look comforted. Starsky reached up to his pocket for the glasses, meaning to make some joke about them and the skull.

   And fell asleep. That’s what it felt like, though he’d certainly never dropped off like this before, not while they were in the middle of something, and he had the vague feeling even through the soft enclosure of unconsciousness that he ought not to ... do this ... whatever this was ... letting go like this ... even though it felt good ....

    Hutch was shaking him. "Starsky! Dammit! Starsk! Come on!"

   He blinked, seeing green-dark and gold-light, and thought slowly that he must have those broken sunglasses on. Tried to focus his eyes. The uneven color was too strange. Tried to raise his hand to take them off but Hutch was still clutching too hard. "What’s the big deal, buddy?" He closed his left eye and looked at Hutch’s bright hair and skin with appreciation. His partner sure did look weirded out, though. Freaked. "Hutch. I’m okay," he said, and smiled.

   Now Hutch looked seriously pissed off. He opened his mouth and closed it without speaking. Then he let go of one of Starsky’s arms and dragged him back to the car by the other. Odd, they weren’t near those trees any more. Starsky stumbled along, pulling the stupid sunglasses off, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, trying to be more coordinated and to figure out what had just happened. Hutch wasn’t carrying the box any more either. Starsky looked back over his shoulder and saw it spilled across the path in front of the bungalow door. Well, he supposed it didn’t matter. The skull was visible; that was enough.

   Being pulled along was beginning to irritate him. "C’mon," he said, "I can walk," and tried to pull away.

   Hutch held on, and his voice was tight. "Yeah, you sure can walk. You can fucking dance. But you’re not doing it now."

    "Dance?"

    "Get in." They were at the car, on the passenger side. Hutch left him there and went around the hood.

   "Hey, I was drivin’."

    "You were. I am."

    The tone of voice made Starsky shut his mouth and open the car door.

    They were moving before he said, "Okay, what went down?"

   "Tell me you don’t know."

   "I don’t."

   The car accelerated; then suddenly Hutch pulled over and killed the engine. He stared out the windshield, and his jaw was set so hard that the tendons stood out.

   "Hutch."

   Hutch didn’t budge.

   "Hutch. Buddy." This time Starsky touched him, and he deflated like a balloon, turning and grabbing Starsky in both arms.

   "Starsk," Hutch said into his neck. Held on even harder. "Starsky."

   "Hey, buddy, hey, I’m here," Starsky said, squeezing, "it’s me, I’m here." He wriggled a little, trying to get turned more on the seat and move away from the window handle, which was jabbing his back. Hutch sat partway up, but Starsky wouldn’t let him go and wouldn’t stop talking to him. "What happened, huh? You’re scarin’ me. I’m here. Come on. We’re okay." They shifted around a little; Starsky pulled his left leg all the way onto the seat, and Hutch pulled him in closer still, grabbed his head and kissed him.

   Talking, Starsky decided, could wait—would have to wait, anyway, until Hutch stopped trying to crawl completely into Starsky’s mouth, sucking hard and working his jaw and his tongue. Starsky rocked his body into Hutch and away, and Hutch drew back with a gasp, then leaned in again, and they rocked together, kissing over and over. Hutch’s hands were under Starsky’s loose shirt, warm and demanding on his back, and Starsky was reaching up into Hutch’s hair and down into the waistband of his shorts. Hutch was hard. Starsky was getting there. Hutch pulled his hands out of the shirt and held Starsky’s head again, kissing lightly all over his face and staring in his eyes in between. "It is you," Hutch said, in between kisses, "isn’t it? Starsky? Tell me?"

   "Yeah," Starsky answered, "babe, it’s me, Hutch, oh, yeah," and Hutch was smiling, Starsky could feel the curve of his lips as they touched him, moved down to his neck, gradually stopped.

   Starsky knew it wasn’t going to happen this time, either, and Hutch could make up any reason he wanted. But it didn’t seem like he was even going to try, the way he was just holding on.

    "Musta scared you to death just now," Starsky said after a while.

    "Did."

    "Gonna tell me what happened?"

   Hutch heaved a deep, long sigh and tried to sit up, but Starsky held him. "Don’t go, just tell me," he said, and Hutch settled back down.

   "You put on those damn glasses," he said, "and you said you were the Baron. ‘I am de Baron,’ like that, in that terrible French accent of yours. ‘An’ I will tell dat modder-feuu-ker.’"

   Starsky began to laugh. "I did not say that. I don’t think I could say that. Modder-feuu—"

   "Feuu-ker," and Hutch laughed a little too, shifting his head on Starsky’s shoulder. "You did. Would I make that up?"

    "Dunno. Yeah, you would."

    Hutch pinched him, low on the hip.

   "Ouch!" He slapped Hutch’s back where his hand already was. "Then what?"

   "You just went off. Raving. Swearing up and down. You went all around the house, sort of jigging and dancing, and yelled and made these terrible howling noises. Said something about how Theodore lied, broke his promises ... you talked about what you wanted to do to him. Ugly stuff, really violent threats. It was ...weird, you know, the accent was so stupid, and I couldn’t figure out what you thought you were doing, but you wouldn’t listen to me at all. Like I wasn’t there."

   Starsky brushed the fine hair away from Hutch’s face, stroked it. "Sorry."

    "Beats attacking me, I guess." Hutch braced his hands on either side of Starsky and hung above him, locked eyes with him. "Forget fishing," he said. "When this is over I am going to fuck you through the mattress."

   "Oh, yeah? You’re gonna run the show? Be Mister Big Top Man?" Starsky rubbed Hutch’s chest, palming it through the shirt.

   "Don’t care about that. We can worry about that later. But I want you to know, really know, that I want you bad. Okay, Starsk? You know that?" Hutch’s eyes were hot, like the blue in the center of a candle flame.

   "I know it." Starsky found the nipples and pinched at them lightly. "Always know it, baby blue. You don’t have to say so."

    Hutch kissed him, slowly, lingering over his lips and the tip of his tongue. "Remember it. In your sleep. Whatever."

    "What did I say?"

   "Oh ... stuff. About how I looked, what you—or the Baron—wanted. Doesn’t matter."

   "That’s when you shook me," Starsky said, feeling no doubt at all. "Woke me up."

    "Yeah."

   Starsky reached up and murmured "So sorry, babe," just before he took Hutch’s mouth and showed him as much of what he knew about the two of them as he could. At the moment, in the car, without taking any clothes off. Tried to promise without words what he meant to do later, when they were not fishing.

******

    But first, there was the ceremony to do.

    It was nerve-wracking, no way around it, to go back into a situation that had been so out of control the first time, even though the cast of characters was different. To go in knowing that neither he nor Hutch could call the shots. Or even understand half of them.

   Hutch had surprised Starsky with his docility about the preparations—the herb baths and incense, the oil, the pure white clothes, even cloths tied over their heads. So Starsky couldn’t balk either.

    Side by side, they looked at themselves in the big hotel-like mirror in the bathroom, just before they left. "We look like short-order cooks," Hutch said, not sharply.

   "Janitors," said Starsky, but he wasn’t amused.

   They drove their borrowed car to Minnie’s, and then followed her to the hounfort. It wasn’t far.

   It wasn’t far enough. Starsky shut the car door with a hand that wasn’t completely steady, and knew Hutch had seen it by the way he gripped the back of Starsky’s neck as they walked, then leaned in and said, "I promise I’ll still respect you in the morning," so that he was laughing when they went in.

    Outside, in the twilight, Minnie glowed in her white caftan and turban; Hutch glowed altogether, cloth and skin and hair. Inside, there seemed a whole crowd of people in white, clothes gleaming like ghosts in the torch-lit room. Minnie moved among them, gesturing, blessing, greeting. When she reached the altar, behind a big carved post, she lit some candles and murmured, sang, picked things up and put them down.

   She turned around again, and everyone got quiet. "Legba," she intoned, and Starsky looked, startled, at Hutch. The blond just shook his head, shrugging; he either didn’t remember that Theodore had used the same name, or didn’t think it was important.

   And he didn’t know about Starsky’s dream. Starsky barely knew—something about Hutch, something about dancing—anyway, Minnie was still speaking, French or something, and Starsky didn’t understand any of it but "Legba ... Papa Legba ...."

    She picked up a bowl of water and left the bungalow, everybody following so closely that Starsky could scarcely see what was going on. Then they all came back in, the drums beat, and the water got poured all over the place, seemed like, with lots of chanting and responses from the others. Minnie kissed the post in front of the altar three times. Still talking about Legba. People were carrying big gaudy flags and what looked like swords back and forth, and Starsky kept on moving out of the way and feeling more and more out of place.

   "I don’t remember anything like this before," Hutch said in his ear.

    "We missed the beginning, maybe," Starsky answered.

   More candles were lit. Smelled odd, herby, kind of like mothballs, a heavy scent that got into Starsky’s head and filled it up. A bottle was circulating too, which Starsky discovered had rum in it, a good strong local one that seemed to burn out his throat and take the top right off his skull. He caught himself thinking that the smoke could get out now.

   "Hoo," Hutch breathed after his mouthful, "I definitely don’t remember anything like this before. Wow." He handed the bottle on, and the woman next to him took a good swig and then made a kind of gargly noise and sprayed the rum back out, obviously on purpose, making a kind of mist that settled on everyone and scented all the air. Then she moved out into the main part of the floor and began to dance, arms weaving and head back, and soon three or four others followed, leaping and swaying and stamping in rhythm on the muddy floor.

    In the center, Minnie went right on sprinkling something very carefully near the central post, shuffling backward as if the dancers were not there, and they swerved around her without a pause.

    The drums were so loud that the rest of the sounds seemed remote, hardly there, even delayed like a sound track for a badly-dubbed film. Sights and sounds and smells and textures and tastes began slowly to pull apart, each in its own realm, distorted and disassociated.

    A cigar came around. Maybe two. The rum came back and the man next to Starsky tried to show him how to blow it as the lead dancer had. Starsky breathed some of it instead, and spent some time coughing, Hutch pounding his back. When he could stand up again, Minnie was beckoning to them.

   They went to her, and looked down at the decorated heart she’d drawn on the floor in some white powder. "Is, is that the same," Starsky began, and she looked at him with that same level stare that had been seeing right through to his underwear and his unconscious mind from the beginning.

   "Flour," she said. It was easy to hear her voice, even though it was so low and her accent was more marked than before. "Get’e stuff from t’e right side of my altar. Bring here and put ‘em where I show you."

   Starsky went right away, and Hutch followed. Neither had gotten a good look at Theodore’s altar, and Starsky’s own was small, so the array of stuff on this one was a surprise. Food and flowers; beads and marbles heaped in a wooden bowl; candles and little, bright-wrapped things that were probably candies. Shards of pottery—they looked like the one that had been wedged between the skull’s teeth, and now that Starsky saw a whole little heap of them it was obvious that they came from a round red pot like the one on the other end of the altar. Starsky put a loaf of bread and some fruit and flowers in the crook of one arm and then took handfuls of the smaller stuff. Stepping out of Hutch’s way, he almost dropped it all, stumbling over the foot of someone sitting on the floor in the altar’s shadow. He wavered, clutched his armful, and stared: it was a young girl dressed like a skinnier version of Minnie, and she was holding a chicken under each arm. They were alive, too. Now that he’d seen them he could hear them squawking. Not happy chickens. He stared until Hutch nudged him from behind.

   "Hey," Hutch’s voice warmed his ear.

   "Chickens," he said, turning, "chickens, Hutch," but his partner just shrugged like it wasn’t even weird.

   Minnie showed them where to put things around the shapes drawn on the floor; she poured more water and some of the rum, chanted and spoke. Other people were speaking too, louder and louder, and it seemed like the dancing and drums were faster too. Starsky got distracted by the whirling motion of the dancers and then found himself being nudged by something soft and squirmy—the girl with the chickens was trying to elbow him away and the chicken on that side was trying to escape.

   Which proved, Starsky thought rather slowly, that they weren’t as stupid as people said, because Minnie was holding a long knife and the other chicken’s head. She pulled out its neck and sliced it! Starsky stepped back and bumped into a dancer, then rebounded into the pole, where he stayed while the other chicken got sliced too. They flapped and the girl leaned over the lines on the floor, and blood got everywhere but a lot of it went onto the design. Hutch got spattered—he was standing as still as if he thought that somebody’d shoot him if he moved. His eyes were huge. "Hutch," Starsky called, but he didn’t seem to hear. "Hutch!"

    The post was holding Starsky up. Hutch had backed into the side of the altar. The drums beat like surf. Minnie raised her bloody hands and her voice, and cried out over and over. One of the dancers came into the middle space, jittering and shaking and talking a mile a minute. Minnie touched her shoulder, and she dropped like a stone, jerking and writhing on the floor, still talking.

   Minnie turned to Hutch, reached for him—he caught her by the wrist. Her lips moved, and Hutch let her go, bending his head to her bloody caress. Her fingers threaded into the hair that escaped from his kerchief, her other hand cupped his cheek, as if to parody the way Starsky had so often touched him. "Hutch!" He might as well have been in a glass box, under water—he hardly knew. Invisible. A ghost.

   Hutch sank slowly to his knees, head still bent. Starsky pushed away from the pole, lurched forward, grasped Minnie’s arm. She turned as lithely as any of the dancers and smeared the chickens’ blood on both his cheeks. "Nou vi Mètrés Erzulie," she said, holding his eyes. "An nou miyan man-yan Erzulie Fréda," nothing making sense but all of it as important as the breath it drew out of him, a long exhalation that seemed to pull him into the depths of her, the brown wide ocean into which he plunged and knew nothing else.

******

   Later, the best Starsky could do at remembering anything would always be only shards, as disconnected and sharp-edged as the pieces of Theodore’s govi pot on Minnie’s altar. Some only sounds, like the drum rhythms, the slap of his own feet through mud, the sound of Hutch’s voice full of some strong emotion—though whether it had been desire or anger or joy, Starsky couldn’t tell. Some texture, the carved surface of the pole, the pull of his clothes against his skin as he danced, the feel of Hutch’s cheek against the flat of Starsky’s tongue as he licked chicken blood from his partner’s skin.

   Some moments, he saw like clips from a movie he’d never been able to watch all of—kissing Hutch, dancing with him, a sensual wild dance that he couldn’t imagine doing together, right in front of people, but remembered with his whole body. It was darker then, and windy. Putting flowers into his hair—that must have been earlier. Eating candy, a soft-centered, syrupy kind he wouldn’t usually like, and feeding a piece to Hutch. And other pieces to other people.

    Another scene outdoors, a line of people straggling along the road, pale and flickering in the light of a few torches and more candles, dancing and singing, jigging along. The headlights of a car stopping dead in front of them. Letting them pass.

   Theodore’s face, his big body on its hands and knees—that was still in the hounfort, Starsky believed, though he couldn’t be really sure. Sometimes he remembered sand. Sometimes the road. Sometimes the flour design on the muddy floor. He did remember that he didn’t feel scared at all. He glimpsed Minnie’s hand on Theodore’s bald head. The moon reflecting from his empty eyes.

   Starsky had run along the sand, but not for fear. Had splashed in the sea like a child, sat down in a wave and flopped onto his back. People were singing. They sounded far away. "La Siren, La Balen, Chapo’m tonbe nan la me. Map fe kares pou La Sirene, Chapo’m tonbe nan la me. Map fe kares pou La Balen, Chapo’m tonbe nan la me." Over and over, like the waves washing him.

   Hutch was above him. The sky beyond was a soft blue-gray threaded with pink and gold. Light edged Hutch’s hair, the curve of his bare shoulder, caught his teeth as he smiled. The chilled, damp weight of Hutch’s body covered Starsky’s, pushed him into a shifting but hard surface below. Skin met skin everywhere.

******

   That must have been last, because when they both woke, they were on the beach, on a sheet, nude, freezing their asses off, sea-salt itching on their skins. Starsky’s body felt stuffed with sand, especially behind his eyelids and in his mouth and throat. Hutch stirred, groaned, fell onto his back, and Starsky shivered with the new chill where Hutch had lain against him.

    "Shit," Hutch said.

   Starsky wanted to second that. He rolled his head slowly to one side, raised his shoulder, shifted his weight slowly. When he’d managed to get onto one side and his face was out of the glare of the morning sun, he opened one eye and watched Hutch blinking and screwing up his face. Naked and pink as the day he was born.

    "Sun," Starsky rasped, "burn."

    "Yeah," Hutch said, putting one arm over his eyes.

    "No. Get ... up."

    "Gotta," Hutch agreed, not moving.

   Every part of Starsky was throbbing. He’d never had a hangover like it. Moving his tongue hurt. And anyway it was too dry to do any good when he tried to lick his lips. He swallowed, and then coughed, the weak spasm shaking him all over. Hutch turned his head, then his body, toward Starsky.

   "No," said Starsky, and got an elbow under himself. Reached with a shaking hand and gripped the one Hutch stretched out. "’M okay."

   Hutch managed a skeptical expression. Starsky admired it, sure he couldn’t get his own face to do anything that complicated. On the other hand, Hutch didn’t even seem interested in getting up, something that was beginning to seem more urgent to Starsky all the time. He let go of Hutch’s hand and braced himself against the sheet, gritted his teeth (that hurt too) and tried to sit up. Slipped. "Fuck." He wanted to swear more, but it was too hard.

   "Never been this destroyed," said Hutch slowly, and the words sounded funny, like he had something in his mouth, though probably it was just dry.

   Starsky moved his elbow again, pulled the lower knee up the sheet, and slowly managed to lift his body. His stomach was roiling and cramping. He wondered if he had the strength to puke, and hoped he’d also manage not to do it on Hutch. The thought seemed to set him off, and he clamped his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut while waves of hot and cold passed over him and his stomach tried to push up into his throat.

   "Buddy?" asked Hutch, but Starsky didn’t have the time for conversation until his insides went back to their usual positions.

   He felt an outside warmth, nudges in several spots, and opened his eyes to find Hutch had scooted over and was curled around him, up on one elbow, head about even with Starsky’s shoulder and bloodshot blue eyes intent. "You’re sweatin’."

   "Feel like shit," Starsky agreed, "don’ you?"

    "Oh yeah." He blinked, and then repeated the movement, and Starsky could see that the blond lashes were tangled and matted together.

    "Lemmee." He brushed at the lashes with one finger, then put it and his thumb in his mouth to dampen them and tried again. Rubbed too hard and Hutch pulled back his head, swayed, balanced again and opened his eyes.

   Something about it woke Starsky’s sense of humor and he found himself smiling. "Babe," and his hand found the curve of Hutch’s shoulder. "Someone’s gotta shovel us up, take us home."

    "You wish."

   Starsky rubbed the salt-roughened skin. "You are gonna burn. Sit up, Hutch. You’ve gotta."

   Instead Hutch leaned forward and rested his head against Starsky’s biceps, and a surge of affection traveled through Starsky’s body with as much force as the nausea had. He found his hand in Hutch’s hair and his head bent over it. "Big lug," he said, and his voice was choked, "can’t—can’t carry you," and Hutch’s arm was wrapped around him, the dry lips pressed against his skin, and Hutch kissed up farther, below the collarbone, and then the shoulder. Starsky pulled the heavy head up until he found his partner’s mouth.

    The kiss was brief, tasted plain bad, and both of them were too wiped to do much with it. But now they were both sitting up and neither of them was going to vomit right away.

    So, Starsky thought, it was probably time to start worrying about clothes.

   "There’s only one sheet," Hutch said, reading his mind.

    "Tear it?"

   Starsky felt a heave, then another one, from Hutch, and pulled back enough to see whether he was about to be barfed on, but Hutch was only trying to laugh. Coughed instead. A few times. Gasped. "Couldn’t tear ... a kleenex," he said, and Starsky knew he was right.

   His bladder was beginning to stab hard, and he knew he needed to get—somewhere—the ocean, he guessed. He pushed Hutch away and tried to get to his feet, but when he was on one knee he felt a wave of dizziness that almost knocked him flat again. So he settled for crawling, which he found he could do, and it was fortunately not far. The sand was rough and every shell and rock and bit of wood he crossed felt huge and sharp-edged. He nearly reached the water and then it swept forward and found him, and the touch of it seemed to release every bit of control of any kind that he had: he heaved and urinated and gasped for air, pouring out what he’d eaten and drunk and, he thought, the lining of his stomach too. The waves pushed and pulled, their rough caress almost too much for him though he recognized that at the moment, moving water was better than still, but he wasn’t sure whether he was moving or not and that just made him sicker. He was shuddering and his eyes had teared up. He managed to rock back before his elbows gave, sat on his heels, swished his hands through the water and then swabbed at his face. Pushed back his hair. Wished really hard for fresh water to rinse his mouth—hell, to bathe in—and then looked around for Hutch.

    The man was actually on his feet. Not too steady, but up. He was holding one end of the sheet in his fist and looked like he was about to charge into the water after Starsky.

    Starsky waved him away, unable to keep looking at him but certain it would be worse to have the two of them fighting the waves and their own dizziness. "Okay," he said, and coughed. "Okay, Hutch, okay."

   Movement caught his eye and he had just that warning before someone cleared his throat and Hutch started so hard he staggered. "Can’t take you guys anywhere," said Huggy’s voice.

   Starsky discovered that his face could make an expression after all, and a really evil one at that. Especially if it looked anything like Hutch’s.

   "Hey," said Huggy, taking a step back and raising hands that had something multicolored hanging from them, "if you guys do any of those things I can see you thinkin’ about, you’ll have to get yourselves home—not to mention these," and he waved what Starsky could now see were clothes. Clothes. He scrambled to his feet before he remembered that he couldn’t. And actually he didn’t fall even when he thought about it.

   Huggy had to hold them up while they got into the shorts he’d brought, and he did, with what was really a minimum of backchat. Then they began the trek down the beach to where they could climb up to the road. The exercise helped, and Starsky began to feel pretty much human. Then Huggy stopped, suddenly, and since they were both holding onto him, they stopped too. "Uh," said Hug, "I should warn you ... there’s somethin’ around that rock ...."

   "What?" Hutch asked, voice peevish, and strode ahead. He leaned on the hump of rock Huggy had gestured at, and then recoiled, violently, a few steps back, looking around wildly and then rushing to the water. Heaving. Vomiting. Starsky closed his eyes and calmed the sympathetic surges of his own stomach, then looked at Huggy’s apologetic face.

   "No, I’d better see," he said, and edged up on the rock while Hug went to Hutch.

   It was a hand. Just a hand. Ragged-edged at the wrist, caked with sand and blood. But he recognized its size and the rings on it, and under it lay a long shard that looked like it was part of the flute. Theodore’s.

    Starsky stood up, rubbed his face, and looked up at the blank sky, trying not to think at all.

   His shoulder was gripped hard, and he looked around to find Hutch’s face looking like paper in the rain. They took a slow breath together, then turned to Huggy.

    "Anything else we should know?" Starsky asked.

   "Didn’t see any more," Huggy said, so they went around the rock, giving it a nice wide berth, and kept going. Holding each other up. Letting it sink in that the case was really over.

******

    They never went fishing. In fact, for the first twenty-four hours or so, getting from bed to bathroom or kitchen or phone (when Godfrey or Huggy called) was all that they could manage. Mostly they slept. Bathed, ate some very plain sandwiches, drank a lot of water and juice, slept some more. At one point, feeling stifled, Starsky made it out to the hammock, collapsed in it, and drowsed there for a while, rocking gently and feeling the sea air pick at his loose pajama bottoms and the hair on his bare chest.

   If there were any dreams, neither man talked about them; when he finally began to feel like being awake was a good idea, Starsky couldn’t remember any.

   The second day, sometime in the mid-morning, Hutch stood up from the lounge chair he’d been lying in and dropped his book on it, then stretched every joint in the long tan body. Starsky just watched from the hammock.

    "Want to go out tonight, buddy?"

    "No," said Starsky, and pulled his sunglasses down with his index finger so he could laser Hutch over the rims. "I want to stay in."

    Hutch smiled. "Nearly our last chance to line up some of those Playboy Resort babes."

    "Do that at home," Starsky said, "plenty of starlets and wannabes." He took the glasses off altogether, still staring at his partner.

   Hutch crossed the yard, still smiling, pacing smoothly as a cat. Starsky sat up in the hammock, and it rocked. Hutch crouched beside it, catching the moving side and holding it still, his arm against his partner’s thigh.

   "Could do me at home too," and Hutch’s voice was that low, take-me-to-bed one again.

   He must know just what he was up to; Starsky knew he knew it; no point wasting time. So Starsky leaned out and Hutch caught him, knelt up, held his thigh and shoulder, and they did a much better job of this kiss than the previous morning on the beach. Hutch tasted of the fruit juice he’d been drinking, smelled of the coconut oil in his suntan lotion. The sea wind played across their bodies and the sun held them close and warm. "Wouldn’t be like this," Starsky said, lips brushing Hutch’s mouth. Pulled back and looked him in the eyes. "You change your mind, wanna go fishing? ‘Stead’a nailing me to the mattress?"

    "Calling me on it," said Hutch, trying for complaint but not succeeding.

   "Yup." He rubbed Hutch’s chest as he had in the car, feeling the nipples tickling his palms. Then, suddenly, rolled away, clear out of the hammock.

    Shoved, Hutch had to catch himself against the cement paving stones, gracelessly. Then he stood and they faced each other across the swinging bundle of cords.

    "You get in it," said Starsky.

   "No, it’ll make me seasick."

    "Then the lounge." Starsky went over to it, and Hutch followed, but was beginning to look really irritated.

   "There’s no room in that thing, Starsk. What’s the deal?"

   "Here’s what we can’t do at home, Hutch," and Starsky unfastened his fly and pulled his shorts down, clear off, tossed them to one side. He hadn’t worn underwear. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and threw that off too. Went over to Hutch and started unbuttoning him.

    Hutch caught his wrists. "Whoa." He laughed nervously. "Starsk, this is practically public."

   "Hutch, we already fucked in public here. On the beach. Probably before that, in Theodore’s ceremony. And nobody cared. We’re not cops here. Not today, not tomorrow—then we get on a plane and have to be cops again, have to follow the rules, or not get caught bending ‘em." He flexed his fingers, got a grip on the cloth of Hutch’s shirt and tugged. "Now don’t be dim, Hutchinson." When Hutch still didn’t move, Starsky swung his hips in until his naked lower body was flush against Hutch’s shorts and legs. Set his jaw and lifted it, stared full into the dark-edged blue eyes.

   Hutch’s hands moved slowly, released Starsky’s wrists and stroked all down his back, both sides, to his ass. "Remember what I told you," he said, and the sultry voice was back.

   "Remember, I said I knew it." Starsky moved in and took that beautiful mouth again, hands flat on the warm planes of the face, tongue looking for the sun he felt inside when they kissed like this. Then, while Hutch still gripped his ass and their tongues still danced together, Starsky slid his hands down to Hutch’s hips and shifted, trying to get his growing hard-on into position between Hutch’s soft-furred thighs. Pulled on the back of Hutch’s leg.

   Hutch tipped his head back and looked through half-shut eyes. "I still want a bed. And we’ve got a good big one in there." He dipped down again and nudged Starsky’s forehead with his. "You’re the one," he murmured, "who was so concerned about me getting sunburned."

    "Right."

   He didn’t bother to pick up his clothes before going inside. He did open the curtains and windows wide, though, to let the ocean sound and air into the blue and white bedroom. Caught just a faint whiff of the herbs Minnie had given them and liked it, so he brushed past Hutch, both hands on the shirt for an instant, murmuring, "Get that off," and out into the other room where the altar still was. He picked up the matches, a candle and dish of the herbs they’d burnt and brought them into the bedroom; he got both lit before Hutch had gotten all the way undressed.

   Hutch eyed him uncertainly, sitting on the bed with his shirt in one hand. "This isn’t going to be—weird."

   Starsky felt a grin take over his face, open him up. He took the few steps that separated them and sat next to Hutch, took the shirt and tossed it toward the closet. Touched his eyebrow, drew light lines around his eye-socket and down his cheek to his mouth. "No, babe," he promised. "Nobody here but us—" and didn’t complete the phrase; that made Hutch grin too, and turn his head to brush his lip against Starsky’s fingertips. One slipped up and Hutch took it into his mouth, sucked on it. Starsky pulled it slowly out, and as he leaned forward to kiss where the lip was wet, his finger found and circled Hutch’s nipple.

   The curtain fluttered; air feathered over them; Starsky’s finger chilled and the flesh under it grew harder. "Mmm," he said into Hutch’s mouth, and Hutch clutched at the back of his head and his hip.

   Both pressed in hard, opening their jaws. Starsky was seriously wondering whether he could reach Hutch’s tonsils. Breath hissed from their noses, twining like the scents of candle and herbs. If there was any space between their bodies even the breeze could not move through it.

    Gradually Starsky surfaced, bringing his tongue back along Hutch’s soft palate and teasing across the ripples of the hard one, hitting the solid ridge just behind his teeth, the slick inner lip. He took a deep breath and eased his mouth away. The hand that had clenched in his hair slipped around to his face, thumb brushing back and forth across the corner of his mouth.

   "Oh, Hutch." Starsky bent again, found the sweet musk in the join of Hutch’s neck and shoulder and rubbed his face in there. More than one kind of incense, and he knew all the best places on his partner’s body. This one. The ear. The belly, where Hutch drew in when Starsky teased it with his tongue, and the navel, and that cleft between genitals and thigh. Here the scent of Hutch was so strong and good that he pulled the big knees apart and licked and kissed from hipbone to inner thigh, then on the other side, while Hutch squirmed around trying to get his cock and balls into the way. "Later," Starsky growled, mouth flat on the taut skin.

   "Now," Hutch insisted, "Ah—" as Starsky sat up. Hutch was flat on the bed now, except for his cock, which was straining and bobbing, wet and red. He moved his own hands toward it and Starsky held them down on the mattress, then leaned in and took just the head in his mouth, drank that fluid that was salty as the sea and viscous as blood. He let go of the bones and cords of the wrists and slid his hands along and under the softer curves of hips and ass, and Hutch’s hands worked into his hair, threading the loops of curl in what seemed slow motion. He licked the length of Hutch’s cock, drew curves and lines along its veins, played them like strings to hear Hutch sigh and groan and speak, the words meaningless and communicating everything.

   So wet. Hutch was so wet now, Starsky’s hands slipped easily up and down the shaft while he still bathed the head, taking it in along the roof of his mouth, sliding it back out. He felt the tide rising in Hutch’s body, the muscles tensing in his legs and buttocks and stomach and arms, and just at that still moment Starsky held down the rigid hips and drew back, just mouthing the tip, his tongue flat against the spot under the head, and when Hutch came the spurts traveled the length of his mouth and throat and he felt each one, tasted it all, closed his eyes and let Hutch enter him in every wave. Then, something he’d never done, he took the soft cock farther into his mouth and held it, warm and still, while Hutch’s fingers circled in his hair and the skin of his thighs was smooth around Starsky’s face. They held each other for moments they could not count, swinging in time’s cradle.

   Then Starsky’s own erection throbbed, and he remembered what he had really planned to do when he started—even before, when Hutch had stretched and put his hand on his back just where the muscles bunched and swelled into his ass. Starsky wanted it. He knew just how. He kissed the tender skin between navel and cock again and said, "Now was that weird?"

    "So good," Hutch sighed, "you know it."

   Starsky kissed the place where the ribs opened, then farther up Hutch’s breastbone, on hands and knees over him. Kissed the nipple he’d ignored before, and up to the same shoulder he’d bitten, morning before last on the Playboy Resort couch. There he kissed longer, softer, and rubbed his cheek against the faint bruise. Starsky’s cock hung down, drawing its own wet lines along Hutch’s skin.

   "Gonna fuck me through the mattress?" Hutch asked.

    Starsky nuzzled his ear. "No," he said. Licked the shell.

   Hutch ran his hands over back, shoulders, arms; reached in and teased the hair from below Starsky’s hipbones to the base of his throat, plucked at his nipples, traced the edges of muscles growing more and more taut. "What’cha holding out for?" he asked. "Hmm?" His fingertips skimmed along Starsky’s sides, the ticklish lines almost too much to bear. Starsky grunted and took Hutch’s earlobe between his teeth, rubbed but didn’t bite down.

   And then Hutch reached in and took Starsky’s cock in both his hands and Starsky reared up on his knees with the sweet shock of it. Hutch held him tightly, still, the strong hard palms just moist.

   "Put this in my mouth? While I’m lying here?"

   "No," Starsky bent again until his nose almost touched his partner’s. "Ride me," he said, the words hardly more than the breath onto Hutch’s mouth from his. "Wanna turn over, see you on me, rocking like you do. Feel your knees in my sides, your ass around my cock." Hutch squeezed him, and Starsky wasn’t sure it was on purpose but it felt so good. They couldn’t go wrong with each other just now. He took another long breath of Hutch and ocean and herbs, and Hutch’s eyes shut and lips parted. "Yes," Starsky hissed, then licked just between, in and out. Worked his arms around the solid ribs and rolled them to their sides, and then Hutch leaned and rolled on top.

   Hutch’s hands and mouth played him now, danced over him, drew him out and back. Each touch was a drop, the rain washed over him, and he couldn’t isolate the sensations that made all his skin feel tight and swollen with the burning pleasure of his nerves. What was the bed pressing him and what was Hutch’s weight? Which touches were the air crossing his skin and which were Hutch’s lashes, his lips, his breath? Starsky closed his eyes and drowned so deep it took the cool touch of lubricant to bring him back to earth. He opened his eyes and saw exactly what he’d wanted.

   Hutch lowered himself gradually, taking each hungry inch of Starsky’s cock, then rotating his hips to work down. His chin was tucked in and his hair fell forward; his fists clenched at his thighs. Starsky covered them with his own hands, fingers spread, palms rubbing, keeping the rest of his body as still as he could while Hutch worked so tight and strong around him. Descending. "Yes, Hutch, yes," he said, an invocation.

   Hutch lifted his hands and their fingers interlaced. He moved back, then forward, slowly at first and then faster, going up and down with Starsky’s thrusts and angling pelvis and back until with a jolt Starsky could feel as well, Hutch found the prostate. Then the rhythm changed; they moved together like a school of fish turning, never missing a beat. Hutch rocked faster and his mouth opened; his cock lifted. Starsky was talking and didn’t know himself what he said. He untangled one hand from Hutch’s and stroked the head and shaft, felt as though it was his own, moving inside in the same rhythm. Riding the same wave. Cresting. Falling in a bright spray to the bed.

   Sweat and semen lay between them, a charm more binding than any of Theodore’s.

   "Hutch." The blond hair moved a little across his cheek but Hutch didn’t say anything. That was okay: Starsky had just wanted the feel of the name in his mouth. He was wide awake and completely disinclined to move. He looked up quietly at the dim ceiling, at the small swimming motions that he knew were in his own eyes.

   "And you wanted to do that in a hammock?" Hutch asked after a while.

    "Wanted to see you in the sun," Starsky answered.

   There was another pause before Hutch sang softly, "Night and Day—" as he’d done when they first arrived at the resort, "—I’ll take the night."

   "You can have it, Blondie." His hand was in the small of Hutch’s back, and he rubbed a little circle there. "Tonight."

******

    They’d paid Minnie, and thanked her, so Starsky hadn’t expected to see her at the airport. But both she and Godfrey came, and patted them and smiled as if they were old friends. Starsky was sure he hadn’t seen Minnie smile before.

    But later she sobered again, drew him aside a little while Godfrey was talking to Hutch. "Don’t forget the lwa," she said. "You belong now. Remember. La Sirene specially, she is a jealous one. Don’t you take back anything you give her."

    Starsky thought guiltily of the candle and herbs he’d moved from the altar to the bedroom. "If I give it back?" he asked, because he had returned the things.

    "Oh, she will get it back. No question. So don’t give what you want again."

    "I’ll remember," he promised, lightly. Not like he was going to toss his badge in, or Hutch.

    She looked at him for a moment—the old hard stare—then nodded, moved back.

    He did think about it during the flight home, from time to time; Hutch was next to the window, and when Starsky looked over at his sleeping partner, the sun glinted off the wing and reminded him of the way the waves glittered and flashed. But then he slept himself, and by the time they were making their way through the familiar bustle of LA International to get their luggage, it had left his mind.

THE END