Love the Mind Knows

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The Mind -- the fucking Mind!    The stars in Its thought
shine forth in abysses, 'Night' spaces,
the fucking alone brought us deep into.
Circling, circling, circling,   the matter of Love
the Mind knows   has my own particular death in it.

Robert Duncan. An Alternate Life.

****************************************

'Detective Starsky?'

Starsky turned in surprise. It had been a while since anyone had given him that title.

'Not officially,' he said. 'Not any longer. I'm retired.'

'Oh. That's good, actually,' said the tall, Black woman who addressed him. 'That's fine. If you're not busy, we'd like to speak to you?' She indicated the short, balding white man who waited quietly beside her.

'Well, I'm not sure if I can speak with you at the moment. I'm waiting for my partner. We're going for lunch.'

'Well, why don't we buy you lunch? My partner and I have an interesting business proposal to offer you, and we can write off the lunch as a business expense.' She grinned, conspiratorially.

Starsky grinned back. He found he couldn't help but like this woman, even if she was messing with his plans for lunch. Hutch was tired, he needed some relaxation. He seemed to think that the entire Missing Women Task Force depended on him every moment of every day. He had a competent Sergeant, and a good squad of Detectives and Patrol Officers working the case. But try to convince him of that.

'Starsk? Come on, we don't have much time.' Hutch had joined them, and he grabbed Starsky's arm, as if to drag him away.

'Hutch!' Starsky said, reprovingly. 'Be polite. These nice people are offering to take us to lunch.'

'Oh, yeah?' Hutch asked, rather distantly. He was in one of his moods, thought Starsky. Time to snap him out of it.

'Yeah. And I wanna go. They say they have a business proposal. I need a business proposal. If you don't want to come along, go get your own lunch.'

'No way,' said Hutch, as Starsky had expected. He looked the odd couple over thoroughly. 'I'm sorry?' he said. 'I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Lieutenant Hutchinson. What sort of business proposal do you have for my partner?'

'My name is Jordan Fox,' said the Black woman. 'This is my partner, Clifford O'Reilly. We're in the business of producing television shows. And we want to ask Detective Starsky here to advise us.'

'Advise you? I know what I'd advise you,' Hutch growled.

Jordan Fox didn't look at all intimidated. Starsky liked her more and more all the time.

'Hutch, if you don't mind, it's me they're talking to. Buzz off!'

'Like Hell I will,' said his stubborn partner. 'I'm coming to this lunch with you, and that's final.'

Starsky sighed. 'Okay,' he said. 'Have it your way.'

****************************************

'The show is called 'Crime and Punishment',' said O'Reilly.

'Catchy title,' was Hutch's sarcastic response.

'I like that title,' said Starsky, as if Hutch hadn't spoken. 'What's it about?'

Jordan Fox laughed. 'Well, we want to show how the police and the District Attorney's offices work together, or don't work together, as the case may be. The first half of the show starts with a crime which has just been committed. The police investigate and make an arrest. The second half shows how the case is prosecuted. We want to have all the procedures as accurate as possible. That's where you come in. We want you as one of our technical advisors.'

'Technical advisors?' Starsky asked.

'Yes. Tell us how real cops solve crimes. Help the writers to get all the details right.'

Hutch snorted. 'You don't expect us to believe that, do you? I've never seen a cop show yet, that got it right.'

'Well, we want to try,' Clifford O'Reilly spoke up for the first time. 'We're trying to make 'Crime and Punishment' as realistic as possible, within the constraints of television.'

'And therein lies your difficulty,' said Hutch, drily. 'Reality and television are completely antithetical. They're juxtaposed in opposition. Adversarial. Conflicting. At cross.... Ouch!'

'Thanks, Babe, for giving us your opinion,' said Starsky, grinding his foot even harder into Hutch's instep. 'Why, look at the time! Don't you have to get back to work? We can talk about this at home, tonight.'

Hutch turned to glare at him. Starsky gave him his sweetest smile, and kicked him at the same time.

'Fine,' said Hutch. 'I have to get back to work. Real work. It's been nice meeting you nice people.'

He shook hands with Ms. Fox and Mr. O'Reilly, and patted Starsky on the head.

'Hutch is working too hard these days,' said Starsky, when his lover had sauntered out of the restaurant. 'But I think he enjoyed lunch. Now, what were you saying about advising the writers?'

*********************************

'Starsky, you're not serious. You can't take this job.'

'I can too. I'll take any job I like.'

'But... but Starsk, you said we'd talk about it later. That's why I went back to work, and left you talking to those people. What did they promise you, anyway? That they were making a TV show about what it's really like to be a cop? They'd never do that, Starsky. Who'd want to watch that?' His voice broke, and nearly broke Starsky's heart in the process.

'Babe? Babe, come here. What's wrong. This is Starsky. Tell me what's wrong.'

'What do you think's wrong?' Hutch asked. 'Starsk?' he whispered. 'I'm going to fail. I'm going to fail all those women, and their families. I'm not going to solve the case, Starsky. You know that. You must know that by now.'

'I know no such thing. What are you talkin' about?'

'I've been looking for weeks now, and I've found nothing. Nothing, Starsky. Those women just vanished, off the face of the earth, like all the news stories say. I don't know any more than I knew the first day.'

'What's all this I, I, I, Hutch? Don't you have people working for you?'

'Of course I do, but....'

'There's no 'but' about it. You have to stop thinking of this task force as composed of you, and a bunch of lackeys.'

'I don't!' Hutch protested.

'Not officially, no. But in here...' Starsky patted Hutch's heart. 'In here, you think it's all up to you. It isn't. Think of those people as your partners. They're there to help you. And so am I. Remember me? Where's your briefcase? Ah! I knew you wouldn't listen, when I told you to leave your work at work.'

'Starsky! What are you doing? Give me that.'

'Nope. I'm going to have a look at this stuff. You read this.' Starsky handed Hutch the scripts Jordan and Cliff had given him.

'You expect me to read this junk?' asked Hutch.

'It's not junk,' Starsky told him. 'It's pretty good, for TV. Have a look. Make notes. I'll do the same for you. Okay?'

He waited for Hutch's judgement. Hutch hesitated for a moment, then gave in.

'Okay,' he said.

*************************

A pair of warm arms snaked around Starsky's neck. He jumped a little, and Hutch laughed.

'You asleep?' he asked.

'No!' said Starsky. 'How late is it, anyway?'

'You've been reading that stuff for two hours,' said Hutch. 'I've read the scripts a couple of times. I'm sorry, Starsky. I was wrong. They're pretty good, just like you said. Maybe you're on to something. Me, on the other hand....'

'You've been doin' great, darlin'. This is your first task force. You just got promoted to lieutenant.'

'I know,' said Hutch. 'I think the Mayor and the Commissioner expect me to fail, and that's why they created the task force. They didn't really want it in the first place. They don't care about all those hookers. If there were 25 missing rich women from Beverly Hills, they'd have called in the FBI, and the CIA, and the Pentagon by now.'

'You're right there, Hutch. But you're not going to fail, and you're going to show them up. I wasn't knocking your abilities, when I mentioned you were new at this. I meant, that you need to step back, take a look at this mass of information your squad has collected. But you don't need to do that, this time. I'm doing it for you. Look. I found some interesting things.'

'You would,' said Hutch.

'Yeah, so listen up. About a year ago, it seems a relative of one of the women came to Metro and spoke to a detective about his suspicions. His sister was the first woman on your list.'

'Amanda Patterson?'

'You got it.'

'Why didn't I know about this?'

'Good question. Probably because it got buried in a mass of data. You need to go talk to that cop, Hutch. The guy gave him some tips, which were never followed up. Then, guess what? The guy went missing, too. Coincidence?'

'I don't think so,' said Hutch.

'Neither do I. And here's another thing. This latest missing woman. Cissie Baines? She's the one you need to concentrate on, Hutch. Her trail isn't as cold as the others.'

Hutch leaned his head on Starsky's shoulder, and sighed. 'I've missed your steel trap mind,' he said. 'It's what I love about you the most.'

'It is, is it?' asked Starsky.

'Well that, and this.' Hutch put his hand on Starsky's crotch, and squeezed.

'Yeah,' said Starsky. 'Let's call it a night.'

**************************

'Am I doing it right?' Starsky asked, anxiously.

'You're doing fine,' said Hutch.

'Well, that's a relief. How come you're not moaning and scratching my back, then?'

'How come I'm not what? Starsky! Will you just get on with it?'

'Get on with it? Oh, boy. The honeymoon is really over now.'

'Don't be a moron. I love sex with you. I just don't have any particular feelings about being fucked that's all. It's fine, but... Oh!'

'What? Did I hurt you?'

'No. Do that again. Oh my God. Starsky!'

'Told you I'd get the hang of this.'

*** The End ***

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