(Author's Note: This is it - the end of the story! And I have learned a Very Important Lesson about posting works in progress. Never again!)

Chapter 9

Starsky opened his eyes as he was hoisted up onto his feet. "Wha', wha're you doin'?" His tongue felt thick and swollen in his mouth. He'd been having a perfectly nice time before they came along. He'd been thinking about flying, like the man on the cover of the red book.

Maybe the reason the man was naked was because he'd figured out that clothes tied a person down. Clothes and all the things that come with them, like rules and expectations. Family and friends weighing you down.

"You're coming for a ride with us," explained Sister Charity, patting his cheek. "You're going to be our insurance."

Starsky felt someone take his arm and he found himself leaning against a large shoulder. He tried to brace his feet under himself and tripped over sneakers that suddenly seemed to have grown three sizes. He heard a curse, but he wasn't sure whether it was the elephant or the gorilla.

Probably the gorilla, he decided. The elephant was all the way over on the other side of the basement moving boxes in a grey, ponderous kind of way. Which meant it had to be the gorilla who was digging his fingers into Starsky's armpits.

"I do not like you," said Starsky to Sister Charity.

"There there, dear. It's just for a little while. After that you won't have to worry about anything else, ever again."

Isn't that nice, thought Starsky, as he was dragged past the Sister Charity and up the stairs, the toes of his sneakers hitting the metal steps. Then he realized that whatever it was Sister Charity had planned, it wasn't nice. Just like her. She looked like a nice little old lady, but she was really an evil drug dealer.

The gorilla – Starsky blinked, for a moment the man really had looked like a gorilla, dragging knuckles and all – opened the door at the top of the stairs. The alley lay beyond, crumbling brick lit by the single yellow light bulb over the back door, and a large panel van parked directly in front. As he stumbled outside, Starsky felt the cool night air hit his face like the contents of another glass of water.

It was just the wake-up call he needed to lock his knees and throw himself sideways. In that same moment, he saw a two-by-four plank of wood crack the Gorilla up the side of the head, knocking him right off his feet.

Starsky blinked. Holding the two-by-four was Hutch, red-faced and breathing heavily. Maybe he'd got it wrong, he thought. Maybe real friends helped you fly.

Hutch kicked the door shut and braced the two-by-four under the knob. The man he'd just hit was still out, and the large dent in his forehead suggested he wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon. Hutch propped him up against the side of the church and patted him down, finding a pistol inside his jacket. A cheap Saturday night special, but fully loaded.

"Starsk, are you hurt?" he asked, as he stuck the gun into the waistband of his slacks.

"Wow," said Starsky. Which would have been reassuring except for the fact that Starsky was still sprawled on the ground, unmoving.

"Are you hurt?" demanded Hutch again. Something heavy thudded into the door, causing it to rattle in its frame. The two by four seemed to be secure for the moment, but he didn't know how much longer it would hold.

Receiving no answer from Starsky, Hutch seized his arm and hauled him up onto his feet. "Come on!"

"Wait!" Starsky slung an arm limply around Hutch's neck and stared down at the front of his slacks. "Uh... did you forget your gun? Your other gun?" He chuckled.

He sounded drunk or worse. Bracing Starsky against his side, Hutch looked around, searching for cover as the door rattled in its frame. Starsky wasn't in any shape to run, and he was too heavy to drag very far.

The panel van was the only option. Hutch steered Starsky over to the idling vehicle. They had just reached the back bumper when the two by four slipped and the church door banged open. Starsky tripped and landed on his knees, just as a bullet buried itself in the side of the van.

Hutch dove over Starsky and rolled back up onto his knees. Grabbing the back loops of Starsky's jeans, he pulled him into cover behind the wheel of the van. Another bullet dug a gouge out of the dirt an inch from Starsky's sneaker.

"Police!" shouted Hutch. "Lay down your weapons!"

A third bullet ricocheted off the bumper in response.

Hutch fired back, and there was a brief lull in the shooting. He could feel the vibrations of the van through his shirt, and it occurred to him that he might be able to load Starsky inside and drive the entire thing away.

"You know why I really don't like smoking?" said Starsky, slowly.

Hutch grabbed Starsky's chin, tilting his head up into the light from the street. His eyes looked like black ball bearings, with almost no blue left. "Starsky, I don't have time for this. People are shooting at us!"

"Because of the heroin."

"Is that what they gave you?" asked Hutch.

"Nope," said Starsky. He yawned.

"Don't go to sleep!" Hutch grabbed Starsky's shirt and shook him. The back of Starsky's head hit the van.

Starsky made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle.

A bullet took a chunk out of the brick wall behind them. "God damn it, Huggy, where's our back up?" This wasn't how he had envisioned dying on the job. He was supposed to go out heroically, saving hundreds from certain death, while his parents – and hopefully Vanessa – wept that they'd never really appreciated him. He was not supposed to die in a filthy alley with a drugged out partner beside him.

"Who's that naked angel guy, anyway?" asked Starsky. "Thought he was Gabriel, but he forgot his flaming sword. Like you forgot your gun. What kind of cop forgets his gun?"

Hutch tried to open the passenger side door. Finding it locked, he peered around the nose of the van. There was a dumpster just down the alley. If he could get down there, he might have a better angle from which to cover the door. "Naked angel guy?" What the hell was Starsky babbling about?

"On the book!" Starsky tried to stand up. "I'll show you." He got halfway to his feet, and then his knees gave out. He sat down hard.

"Starsky, get down!"

"M'already down."

Hutch saw the door of the church open a crack. He fired a shot, and it closed. "Your naked angel is Icarus," he said rapidly. "It's a myth from ancient Greece. He had wings made of wax and string and feathers."

Taking a deep breath, Hutch ran diagonally across the alley to the dumpster. Halfway across the door opened and bullets chewed up the ground behind him. He threw himself the last few feet, landing hard on his shoulders.

"What happened to him?" called Starsky, apparently undisturbed by the firefight around him.

"He flew too high, the heat of the sun melted the wax holding his wings together, and he fell into the ocean and drowned." Hutch bellowed back. He shook his head. Starsky's questions were making an already surreal situation even stranger.

He could see the driver's side door clearly from this angle, but if he tried to run over and open it now, he'd almost certainly end up with a bullet in his back. What he needed was a distraction. Unfortunately, Starsky was in no shape to provide it.

"But the higher you fly, the colder it gets," argued Starsky. "The wax would have frozen before it melted."

The door opened again, but this time instead of bullets there was only a feeble elderly voice. "I give up, gentlemen. You wouldn't hurt an old lady, would you?"

Hutch peered around the side of the dumpster. Sister Charity was standing in the doorway, clutching her purse.

"Don't trust her," said Starsky, though it wasn't clear whether he was offering advice or talking to himself.

Hutch stood up, covering her. "Where's your weapon?"

"My weapon?" she said. "Oh my goodness, no. I don't have a weapon. My man had the gun, and he's run out the front door."

Hutch glanced behind himself. The entrance to the alley was empty. He edged out from behind the dumpster. Behind Sister Charity, he could see Starsky leaning against the van.

"I've been completely abandoned," said Sister Charity, pathetically. She began to cry.

"Okay, uh... You're under arrest," said Hutch, deeply unsettled by the fact that the villain was an old lady who was now in tears. He lowered his gun and stepped forward, wondering what to do next. It didn't seem right to throw her up against the van and frisk her.

"Behind you," shouted Starsky.

Hutch dropped and fired toward the entrance of the alley, without question. A large bald man staggered back a step before regaining his balance. Then he raised his weapon and fired. Hutch rolled toward the wall. Flying fragments of cement bit into the side of his face as a bullet narrowly missed him.

Hutch fired again, and saw the man fall. Behind him, he heard Starsky yell, and he looked back just in time to see Sister Charity draw a small silver pistol from her purse.

"Hold it right there, copper!" she shouted, and there was no trace of weakness in her voice.

Hutch froze. Armed or not, she was still an old lady.

Sister Charity inched sideways toward the van.

"Be sensible," pleaded Hutch, scrambling to his knees. "You can't get away with this!"

She opened the driver's side door with one hand. "I've been at this gig since before you were born, boy!"

Hutch pointed his gun at her. "Stop right there!"

Sister Charity climbed inside the van. "You wouldn't shoot a little old lady!"

"Stop!" Hutch jumped to his feet. The van began to roll toward him, and behind it he saw Starsky stumble and fall. Trapped, Hutch finally fired a shot, shattering the windshield.

Instead of stopping, the van sped up, Sister Charity grinning maniacally behind the wheel. Hutch threw himself back against the wall of the church. The van scraped the side of the dumpster, narrowly missing him. He fired again, and the back tire disintegrated into shreds of rubber.

Hutch squeezed the trigger again, but this time the hammer of his gun fell on an empty chamber. Out of bullets, he watched helplessly as the van sped out of the alley. He had one last glimpse of Sister Charity's exhilarated face, as she fired wildly out of the window. Then her front wheels hit the body of the man he'd shot, and the van bounced. The back doors of the vehicle swung wide and a box fell out, breaking open and scattering packages of white powder across the ground.

It all happened in slow motion. Hutch watched as the remaining front wheel failed to find traction on the road, and the van shot straight across the intersection. With a screech of tortured metal, the front of the vehicle folded itself around a telephone pole, collapsing like it was made of cardboard.

One glance back told Hutch that Starsky was fine, sitting on the ground in the center of the alley, staring at the crumpled remains of the van. Hutch ran to the vehicle and tried to yank open the driver's side door. It was jammed. He tried again, and then stopped. Through the shattered glass he could see that Sister Charity's days of running a drug empire were over.

Hutch let go of the door and dropped his head, rubbing his face with both hands. He could hear sirens approaching in the distance. He wondered what had taken Huggy so long, and then realized that the entire fight could not have taken more than ten minutes.

Wearily, he walked back to Starsky and dropped down next to him.

"I still don't get it," said Starsky, slowly. "His wings should have frozen."

"It's a myth," said Hutch, watching black smoke begin to fill the front of the van. There was a fire in there somewhere, and he supposed he should keep trying to get Sister Charity's body out before it burned. "It's about the danger of reaching for glory and fame. We're supposed to stick to the middle road."

Sister Charity hadn't stuck to the middle road, thought Hutch. Maybe she'd appreciate having a funeral pyre. In any case, he doubted he'd be able to get her out and was too tired to try.

Starsky made a rude noise. "Who wants the middle road? If we choose the middle road, we'll end up in blues the rest of our long, long, boring lives." He lay on his back and looked up at the sky.

A black and white pulled to a screeching halt beside the van, blue lights flashing. Hutch could see the cop inside on his radio, no doubt calling for a fire truck. "Starsky, there was this other Greek guy, named Achilles. He was given a choice between living a long, ordinary life, or a short, glorious one."

"Yeah?" said Starsky, still looking at the sky. "Have you made your choice yet?"

"I think so," said Hutch.

"Sister Charity wasn't just any old lady," said Hutch.

Starsky tried to open his eyes. They felt as if they'd been weighted down with lead. He finally cracked one open and peered blearily at Hutch. "Go away."

Hutch sat down on the end of his hospital bed. He tapped the side of Starsky's face with a rolled up sheet of paper. "You'll want to hear about this."

"I'm tired, Hutch. And the nurse won't let me go home." This was the worst hangover he'd ever experienced. The initial pleasant lassitude had been replaced with an inexplicable case of insomnia, and a miserable conviction that Sister Charity had damaged his brain with those blue pills and he'd never sleep again.

Hutch unrolled the paper and held it up in front of Starsky's nose. "Your walking papers. The doc says they still don't know exactly what kind of narcotic you were given, but whatever it was doesn't appear to have any lasting effects."

Starsky opened both eyes. "I get to go home?" His initial delight was swiftly replaced with dismay. "Except I don't have a home."

"Yet," said Hutch. "If you get dressed, we can go check out that place on Ridgeway. Now are you going to let me tell you about Sister Charity or not?"

Starsky sat up, and blinked a few times, waiting for the static to clear. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more about Sister Charity. She was dead, and it was his fault. What more was there to say? "Go ahead."

"Sister Charity, A.K.A Doris Daly, A.K.A Calamity Dame-"

"Wait," interrupted Starsky. "What did you say?"

"SIS-ter Char-ITY," said Hutch, enunciating clearly.

"No, no, you turkey. The last one. Did you say Calamity Dame?" Starsky was wide awake now.

Hutch nodded, grinning.

"THE Calamity Dame?"

"Yes."

"The one who masterminded that big rum-running operation during the Prohibition? And started that charity home for orphans that she used as a front? And who shipped the rum in crates disguised as baby formula?"

"Yes, yes and yes. Same lady. She got out of prison just last year, and it looks like she was trying to rebuild her empire. With drugs this time, instead of bootleg booze."

"Wow," said Starsky, blankly. "Oh, wow. And we made her drive into a telephone pole." Somehow, finding out that Sister Charity was Calamity Dame, the infamous Lady Gangster, made him feel even worse.

"She made herself drive into that pole," said Hutch. He handed Starsky his jeans. "Get dressed."

Starsky took the jeans and swung his legs off the side of the bed. "I remember reading about her." As he pulled them on, he said, "I feel like we just took down Al Capone."

"Not bad for our first bust as partners, hey?"

Starsky stopped in the middle of doing up his fly. "Hutch, we killed a little old lady!"

"We took down the head of the biggest drug smuggling organization in Bay City, and we did it alone." Hutch passed over Starsky's shirt. "I think the odds in the 'Will Hutchinson Survive' pool are going to change dramatically."

Oh hell, thought Starsky. He knows!

"Stop looking so shocked," said Hutch. "We're going to be detectives, remember? We have to be able to detect things."

"This place is great!" Starsky stood in the center of the living room and turned 360 degrees on his heel, taking in his surroundings with apparent delight.

Not that there was much to take in. The apartment was utterly bare, except for peeling paint and some exposed wiring.

"It… needs a little work," said Hutch, carefully.

"Sure, but did you see the size of that bathroom?"

What Hutch had seen was rusted pipes and brown glue stains where the tiling had been ripped off the walls. "Starsky."

"So maybe it does need a little work." Starsky emphasized the "little". "But there's nothing here I don't know how to fix, and I really doubt Mrs. Henderson is growing pot in the basement of this house."

"No, I'm sure that's one of her other properties. She's probably got Weezie and Dougie managing it." Hutch's mouth tightened as he suppressed a grin. Starsky's enthusiasm was contagious, and despite his better judgment he was starting to see the possibilities in this place.

"Aw, she's a sweet old lady. And those two are probably miles from Bay City. I'd still like to know who was the moron who let a wanted man post bail for his buddy." Starsky wandered over to the light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a short cord dangling from it. He pulled it, without success.

Hutch couldn't believe Starsky's determined optimism where old ladies were concerned. "Sweet? She threatened to call the cops when you tried to inquire after this place." In retrospect, driving straight to the property from the hospital hadn't been the best plan. "You're lucky I was here to make you look respectable." Hutch found a light switch by the door. He waited for Starsky's nod before flipping it.

The bulb stayed dark.

"That's because she didn't know I'm a cop. And a hero! She loves me now," said Starsky, unscrewing the light bulb and shaking it next to his ear. With a shrug, he tossed it onto a heap of broken drywall in the corner.

Hutch winced at the sound of breaking glass. "Not enough to give you a parking spot."

"Bah." Starsky waved him off and strolled over to the sliding deck doors. He stretched in the fading light, and patted his chest, contentment written clearly in every line of his body. Beyond him, the sunset glowed red.

Hutch rubbed the back of his neck. He'd put off asking the question as long as he could, but it was getting late. "Uh, Starsk?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I crash here, tonight?"

Starsky grew still. Carefully he said, "Van kicked you out, didn't she?"

"She did not kick me out!" Hutch took a deep breath. "She's just not very happy with me right now."

Starsky turned around, his arms crossed. "Saying 'don't come back' is a little more serious than making you sleep on the couch, you know."

"I'm not breaking up with Van." Hutch's voice was flat.

"I know."

"Marriage is a commitment, and I take it seriously. I'm not going to abandon her."

"I know!"

"You don't think we're going to last," said Hutch, accusingly.

Starsky grimaced. "I know you love her."

"Damn right." Hutch turned away, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Starsky pushed open the sliding door and stepped outside. When he returned he had a plastic folding chair in hand. He set it down in front of Hutch. "Here, you can arm wrestle me for the only piece of furniture in the house. Mi casa es su casa, and I promise I won't even get on your case about smoking."

"I've quit."

"What?"

Hutch patted his pockets and then turned up empty hands. "See? No cigarettes. I've quit." He felt a brief qualm at the thought of never smoking again, but the look on Starsky's face was a reward it itself.

"Really?"

"But you've got to tell me the truth now. What's the connection between cigarettes and heroin?"

"Cigarettes and heroin?" Starsky bit his lip.

"Back in the alley, you said heroin was the reason you don't like smoking."

"Well..." Starsky took a deep breath. "That's how you got your heroin, back in Vietnam. You'd dump the tobacco out of a cigarette, pour the heroin in, and then smoke it."

"You as in you," asked Hutch. "Or 'you' as in everyone else?"

Starsky looked back outside. "I remember my first day in country. I was nineteen. A bunch of guys walked up to me, offered me an opium joint and told me that if I bought any drugs, I'd buy it from them. If I bought hash from anyone else..." He shrugged. "In Saigon there were little kids who would sell you black market smokes, just a dollar and cut with all kinds of garbage." Turning to face Hutch, he said, "I really don't like the smell of tobacco, you know? It stinks."

"Good thing I've quit, then," said Hutch. "But Starsk?"

"Yeah?" Starsky was looking apprehensive.

"If you ever rag on me again about my college experiments with LSD..."

"It's not the same!"

"Right, because the drug I tried was legal!"

Starsky grinned. "Why don't we go get ourselves some legal alcohol and a pizza? A home's not a home if the fridge isn't stocked."

Hutch took one more look around as Starsky collected his jacket. Despite the exposed wiring, stripped walls and lack of food, Starsky's new place already felt like home.

The End!