Rules of Engagement

by Susan

sjames_centre@yahoo.com

“Good to know the rules, Starsk,” Hutch told him as they left the station that night.

“Well, it’s not exactly a rule.” A faint smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

“Excuse me, but ‘I’m always right’ sounds like a rule,” Hutch shot back.

“Okay, maybe it is a rule. Rule number one. Like the prime directive. Starsky is always right. Like tonight.” His smile widened.

Hutch wasn’t amused. “Let’s just go eat. But not the diner again. I want real food.”

“Sure, Hutch, whatever you say.”

“Since when?”

Hutch wanted to kill him. But when? Before they ate or after? Give the condemned man one last meal? It might be easier if they ate first, Starsky always let down his guard when he was full. Got sleepy and careless. He hadn’t exactly worked out how he was going to do it. He was torn between a slow and painful death and something quick and unexpected. Death by opera? He smiled to himself, pleased at its brilliant simplicity. A little Wagner was a powerful thing. He imagined what three hours could do. He pictured Starsky tied to a chair, begging for mercy. Or what about death by junk food? Force feed him burritos? Give him a terminal case of indigestion—that would work and no one would ever suspect Hutch, they all knew how much crap Starsky ate. He liked that. There was a certain poetic irony to it. Hoist by his own petard and all that.

He watched as Starsky bounced across the diner from the men’s room and slid into the booth opposite him. Since when did he do that? Hutch felt a foot in his lap. Oh, since now. Starsky grinned, reached over for the menu, and did a kind of sexy brushstroke under the table, the pressure alternating between heel and toe.

“Move your foot. Someone will see,” Hutch said, his voice husky.

“Sure, Hutch, whatever you say.” Starsky moved his foot. In small circles.

Hutch had a flash of himself as the Incredible Hulk, his pants in shreds, burst open at the seams.

“I meant re-move your foot.” Hutch traced a small round scar on the table with one finger, shifted sideways in his seat. The foot followed.

“Say please,” Starsky answered without looking up from the menu. He was humming now. It sounded like Blueberry Hill.

Hutch watched the waitress cross the diner, heading towards them. “Now!”

“Say please.”

The waitress stood at the end of the booth, pulled a pencil slowly from behind one ear, dug a pad from her apron pocket, and looked at them expectantly.

“Please...”

Starsky lowered his foot, Hutch coughed, and the waitress tapped her pencil impatiently against the pad. Starsky smiled up at her, the smile he reserved for sweet old ladies, little girls, and grumpy waitresses. “He’ll order for both of us. He knows what I like.”

Hutch felt a blush start a slow crawl up his neck. He really was going to kill Starsky. He’d fuck him to death if he didn’t think Starsky might actually enjoy it.

“Can we get two cheeseburgers, two fries and two Cokes? Please.” And one cold shower.

“And no onions,” Starsky added. He winked at the waitress. “I got a date later.”

Hutch kicked him.

It was late. Or early. Depended which side of the day you were on.

“Starsk?” If he couldn’t sleep, neither would Starsky. Love was like that, Starsky always told him. You were supposed to share everything. He poked him in the ribs.

“I’m asleep,” Starsky grumbled.

“Too bad.” He poked him again. The shoulder this time. “I want to talk. About tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it. Happens to everyone sooner or later.”

“Very funny. I want to talk about before. In the alley tonight. You should have waited for me. Next time you might not be so lucky and I’ll be talking to myself.”

“You are talking to yourself. I’m asleep, remember?” He buried his head under the pillow.

“I’m serious.” He pulled the pillow off Starsky’s head and barely resisted the urge to hit him with it.

“I know you’re serious. Seriously crazy. Anyway, you’ll never really be alone. I plan to haunt you after I’m gone. I’m going to follow you around, whisper in your ear, grab your ass when no one’s looking.”

Hutch almost smiled at that. Almost. “You do that now.”

“True. And besides, I wasn’t lucky tonight, I was right. Always am. Rule number one, remember?”

“You are so full of shit. I swear, if you …”

Starsky sighed, reached over to turn on the bedside lamp, and blinked a few times against the light. He propped himself up on one elbow facing Hutch.

“Remember when I told you that you were in love with me. And you said you weren’t?”

Low blow. “That was different.” And I was lying, anyway,

“Was I right or not?”

“Yeah, you were right.”

“And when I said we could make this work, and you said we couldn’t?”

“That has nothing to do with tonight and you know it. You should have waited for me.” He sounded angrier than he meant to. Not as angry as he was, though. Or as scared.

After a moment's hesitation, Starsky tightened his lips into a thin line, and took a long, slow breath. Hutch wondered if he had pushed too hard. If Starsky would push back.

Starsky finally said, “Feltham was taking off the back way. You had your hands full with Doyle. Anyways, I was right; he had the stuff on him. Like I said he would.”

“You also said he wouldn’t have a gun. And he did. And you almost got killed. Over a couple of fuckin’ necklaces.” Which is why I wanted to kill you. Which he had to admit was sort of illogical. “When I heard the shots, I thought …”

“I ducked, didn’t I?” He reached out and touched Hutch’s cheek with one hand. “Besides, they were really, really expensive necklaces. Did you want to explain to Dobey how we lost him?”

Hutch wanted to shake him. What about next time? What about when there was no door or no car or no fucking anything to duck behind? What about then? But he said nothing, just leaned in against the warmth of Starsky’s hand. Swallowed his fear and put it away for another day.

He finally found his voice. “You make me crazy. You get yourself killed over something stupid and I will never speak to you again. Let’s make it rule number two. No getting killed over stupid stuff. Understood?”

“Fine. Rule number two. Got it.” He turned off the light, turned on his side and pulled the sheet up over his shoulders. “Hutch?”

“Yeah?”

“You worry too much. Together, we’re invincible, a couple of regular superheroes. Now go back to sleep.”

“One of these days someone’s gonna have kryptonite. What’ll you do then?” he asked quietly.

But Starsky was already asleep.

~~~

“God, I hate that,” Starsky complained as he reached across the table to grab the last piece of pie.

“Hate what?” Hutch leaned back in the chair smiling. He knew where this was going and planned to enjoy the ride.

“That thing you do.” He swore as the piece fell apart halfway between the pie plate and his plate.

“I thought you liked that thing I do.” Hutch wagged his eyebrows at him.

“Why do you always tell me what I want?” He picked up a stray piece of apple from the kitchen table and popped it in his mouth. Licked his fingers.

Hutch resisted the urge to lean across the table and lick Starsky’s fingers too. “Touchy, touchy. All I said was that you didn’t really want that third piece of pie.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s bad for you.”

“No, I mean why do you have to tell me what I want?”

“Because I’m arrogant.” Because I know it bugs you. Because I like make-up sex. Because we have nowhere to go today.

“No shit, blue eyes. You know what I want now?”

“To ravish me? To make me come so hard I see stars?”

“Oh, you’ll see stars all right.”

He did. He was pretty sure they both did.

~~~

“We need to talk,” Starsky said to him from the other end of the couch.

Starsky was naked. When had that happened? Hutch usually noticed when Starsky got naked. But it was late and they were both tired—the kind of tired that made Hutch wish he could just be in bed without having to get there. He needed a transporter, he thought.

“We need to talk,” Starsky repeated.

Hutch wasn’t in the mood to talk. He was in the mood to be unconscious.

“You know, Starsk, when we started . . .” He never knew what to call it. Going steady?

“Dating?” Starsky offered.

Hutch wished he would put his pants back on since it seemed he wasn’t too tired to be distracted after all. “We’re not dating, don’t ever it call it dating. Geez.”

“Fucking?” he suggested.

“Whatever. Anyway, I thought one of the best things about being with a guy was that I’d never have to hear that again.”

“What?”

“We need to talk.”

“We do? Oh right. I said that, didn’t I? Ma called when you were in the shower this morning. She sounded lonely. She wants to know if I’ll come for Passover. She said we we’re both invited.”

Hutch was suddenly awake. “We?”

“You. Me. We.”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe I’d go to Duluth for Easter.”

“I? It’s never ‘we’ with you, is it?” Starsky bent down to pick up his clothes from the floor.

“Starsk, now isn’t a good time to start this.”

Hutch watched him pull his jeans up over his hips. This was serious—Starsky never argued naked.

“There’s never a good time. You went to Duluth alone at Thanksgiving.” He sat on the coffee table facing Hutch.

“You know why.” He was going to tell his parents, he’d told Starsky. But in the end, he hadn’t told them anything. Hadn’t even known where to start. He knew somewhere deep down he’d never really planned to tell them at all. He suspected Starsky knew it too.

“I know what you said.” Starsky’s hands had closed into fists and now he opened them slowly and rubbed them against his thighs.

“And you said you understood.”

“I lied. You lied too. Did my name even come up?”

“Not telling isn’t the same as lying. It’s just easier. You don’t know them. And I didn’t want to go through all that if—” He turned away.

“If?” Starsky’s voice was cold. “If what?”

“If you didn’t, you know, if you decided . . .”

“Look at me.”

Hutch turned to face him and didn’t like what he saw.

“If I decided what, Hutch?”

“Nothing.” He ran a hand through his hair, stalling for time.

“Say it,” Starsky demanded.

“If you decided that being together was too hard. That it wasn’t worth the lies we have to tell.”

Anger flashed across Starsky’s face. He stood and pulled on the crumpled shirt and shoved his bare feet in his shoes. He felt in his pockets for the keys to the car as he headed toward the door. “I’ll be back later,” Starsky said without looking at him.

“When?”

“When I stop wanting to smash my fist in your face.”

At two, Hutch gave up waiting and went to bed. He left the hall light on. Just in case.

The sound of the front door opening, or maybe closing. woke him up. Or it might have been the muffled thud of someone bumping into furniture. Hutch glanced at the clock. Three-thirty.

“Rule number three,” a voice said from the doorway.

“Starsk?”

“You expecting someone else?”

He heard footsteps and the sound of shoes being kicked off. Hutch wanted to see his face, he wanted to know if it was anger or remorse or just plain stubbornness that made him come back. He reached for the light but Starsky flipped him onto his back and straddled him, his legs pressed up hard against Hutch’s hips. He grabbed Hutch’s wrists in one hand and held them back over his head.

“Get off me.”

“Shut up and listen. Rule number three. No lying. Not to each other. You wanna tell your father I’m your swim coach or your golf buddy or your bridge partner, fine. Tell him what you want. We lie to everyone else. I can live with that. But not here, and not to each other. Understand?”

“Starsk . . . let me go.”

“Understand?” Starsky said into his ear, his voice low and husky, the word stretched out so that it wasn’t really a question at all.

Starsky’s breath was hot against his face, his shirt rough against his own bare skin. He nodded into Starsky’s neck and his cock jumped. He heard Starsky’s low laugh as he moved back and forth against him. Hutch gasped and lifted his hips.

“Not good enough.” Starsky kissed him hard, all tongue and teeth and heat. “Say the words,” he said breathlessly. He used both hands to hold Hutch’s wrists on either side of his head. He bent low and slowly pulled a nipple between his teeth.

Hutch shivered and struggled to find the words. “Rule number three . . . no lying.”

Starsky let go of his wrists, stood and pulled off his shirt and pants. His skin flashed silver as a car passed by the open window and light flickered through the blinds. Hutch grabbed him by the hand and pulled him back down beside him. His hands moved on Starsky’s chest, up to the hollow of his neck and then they were tangled in his hair, pulling him down on him. Hutch groaned as they moved together, his breath coming hard and fast, his world shrinking until there was only the sound of his heart and Starsky’s skin against his and the feel of their cocks pressed together. And when he came, both palms pressed up against Starsky’s and his name on his lips, he finally understood.

~~~

Two weeks later, Starsky started making plans with the DEA to go undercover. He was getting a new wardrobe, compliments of the department, and a black Mercedes 450SL. He got a new name too, Mateo Moretti, Mattie to his near and dear back east, though Starsky guessed he didn’t have many of those. Not after reading the file the feds sent over. It was thick and nasty and as Hutch pointed out, only contained the things the feds knew about and none of the things they didn’t.

The real Mattie was sitting in a safe house somewhere in upstate New York watching Search for Tomorrow and working out his witness protection deal—life in some suburb in exchange for testimony against his previous employer. The DEA agent, Frank Vaughan, newly transferred from New York City, had had the bright idea that maybe Mattie could be useful in California too. Danny Moretti, Mattie’s third cousin, once or twice or maybe three times removed, ran a drug operation out of Hollywood. It was just far enough outside Bay City that the chances of anyone recognizing a tarted-up Starsky were pretty slim—or so they hoped.

“We can kill two birds with one stone,” Vaughan had argued when he’d pitched the idea in Dobey’s office. Dobey had nodded and Starsky had looked excited, but Hutch had just wanted to punch the word “we” right back down Vaughan’s throat.

Danny Moretti agreed to take Mattie in, sight unseen. “Because you’re family,” he said. Danny knew that Mattie had gotten himself in hot water back east and he’d bought the line that Mattie needed to get away for awhile – “until things cooled down.” He and Mattie hadn’t seen each other up close and personal since they were both five—at their cousin Freddie’s baptism at Santa Maria’s Church in Brooklyn—which meant this whole bait and switch scheme had half a chance to work. Hutch worried that half a chance was generous.

Mostly, Hutch wasn’t happy about Starsky going in alone. They spent a day trying to find a plausible cover for him, but finally gave up. Just not that much call for tall, blond Mafia types, Starsky told him.

“I could’ve been adopted,” Hutch insisted stubbornly.

A week before Starsky was to put on the fancy clothes and the new name, he and Hutch sat on the couch playing another round of “Name that Relative.”

“Your aunt on your father’s side. Owns a hair salon.”

“Ah, that would be Aunt Carmen. Lovely lady. If you like large, older women, with small warts and big feet.”

“Name Uncle Vito’s children, in order. Professions, for bonus points.”

“Bonus points?”

Hutch slowly undid the top two buttons on Starsky’s shirt and smiled encouragingly.

“Oh,” Starsky said. He cleared his throat. “Okay then. Rudy works for a stockbroker in Manhattan. Joseph is a lawyer and Dorothy . . . wait, wait, don’t tell me . . . Dorothy is a nurse.”

Hutch started doing up the buttons, shaking his head.

“Too bad. You were off to such a great start, too.”

“I know! She’s a doctor, right?”

Hutch nodded, undid the buttons again, and rolled one of Starsky’s nipples between two fingers. Starsky gasped.

“Now, where did you go to high school? College?” He started on the other nipple.

“Our Lady of Perpetual Help. No college.”

Hutch bent down and licked the nipple slowly. Then he lifted his head and looked up at him, smiling. “Job experience?” He undid the buckle of Starsky’s belt.

Starsky tried to help and Hutch smacked his hand away. Starsky moaned again and lifted his hips off the couch, looking for more contact with Hutch’s hand.

“Job experience,” Hutch repeated. “Mattie’s, not yours.”

Starsky closed his eyes. “Few years running numbers for Vinnie, then got promoted up to enforcing, lately moved on to more exciting things like murder . . . Oh God . . .”

Hutch unzipped Starsky’s pants and slipped to his knees between his open legs. “I want to hear about Danny now,” he said, his voice a low growl.

“He hangs out at the Jungle Room,” Starsky answered raggedly. “He has a fondness for expensive vodka and pinball and – ”

Starsky lifted his hips and Hutch pulled his jeans down past his hips in one swift motion.

“And?”

“And he’s allergic to nuts.”

“Good thing I’m not,” Hutch laughed.

~~~

Starsky became Mattie one afternoon a week later. He left the Torino and keys with Hutch, slipped into one hell of a black silk suit, slapped on a little dab of Brylcreem, and drove the Mercedes to the Jungle Room, a stripper bar in Hollywood, and Cousin Danny’s favourite hangout. Danny was a classy guy who liked his women dumb. It was easier to impress them that way.

They agreed there would be no contact for the first two weeks, no calls, no secret messages through Huggy, no meetings in back alleys. It scared the hell out of Hutch, but he accepted that Starsky had to be Mattie if this was going to work.

The feds had set their sights pretty high. They wanted Starsky to catch Danny doing something really bad. One of them had actually said that, “Catch him doing something, really bad, would ya?”

“Squeezing the toothpaste in the middle?” Starsky suggested.

“That’s not exactly a federal offense,” Vaughan said.

“The way he goes on about it, you’d think it was.” Hutch retorted, looking at Starsky.

The agent raised one eyebrow. Starsky shrugged.

In the end, they narrowed it down to a few possibilities. Buying or selling a shipment of drugs, killing someone. Not Starsky though, Hutch reminded them, since that would defeat the purpose of the assignment. Starsky’s suggestion was catching Danny leaving the toilet seat up.

“Another federal offense?” Vaughan asked Hutch.

“You have no idea.”

And there would be no wires. Cousin Danny was also known as Paranoid Danny.

They said goodbye in the squad room and did all the manly things men do on those occasions. Hutch was pretty sure that no one saw their hands touch briefly under the desk or the look on Starsky’s face when he turned to go.

Leaving the station later, Hutch found a small envelope on the front seat of the car. Inside were Starsky’s necklace and a short note.

For safekeeping

Rule number four: No worrying. I’ll be fine.

Ciao

S

Hutch stood in the empty parking lot and remembered all the things he’d meant to say. Like be careful and don’t take chances and remember the rules. And I love you. That most of all.

The first postcard, addressed to Mrs. Carmen Moretti, arrived in Hutch’s mailbox a week later. It was a night shot of Mann’s Chinese Theater, all neon and glitz and bad taste. The writing was a loopy, left-handed scrawl that stopped him dead in his tracks.

Dear Aunt Carmen,

Hope you are well. Things are great here. Love my new job.

Miss you.

Love and kisses,

Your favorite nephew

In the squad room the next morning, Hutch slid the postcard under the plastic that covered the blotter on his desk.

Two days after that, it was the Hollywood sign, and a message for Uncle Vito.

Danny is real good to me.

Dick says hi. He misses you.

Mattie

He came home from the station each night, made dinner, and talked to his plants. He read a book about the secret life of ferns, caught up on six months of National Geographic magazines, and watched what he wanted on TV. He stopped by Huggy’s a couple of times, played some pool and came home early. Life is short, his father told him once. It was the days and nights that were long.

Two weeks after Starsky went under, there was a postcard of the Brown Derby waiting for Hutch when he came home.

Dear Rudy,

Things are really quiet here now. I’m starting to wonder if maybe I should take it personal.

I’ll call on the weekend when it’s cheaper.

Mattie

The next week, a Friday, he got another postcard, postmarked the day before. God bless the postal service, Hutch thought as he flipped it over.

Dear Aunt Carmen,

You’ll be happy to hear I found a new church. Stella del Mare. Mass is on Sundays at 11. I go alone since Danny’s not exactly the churchgoing type.

I miss everyone. Give Little K a kiss for me when you see him.

Mattie

He found a listing in the phone book for a Stella del Mare Catholic Church in Culver City and started counting down the hours. He’d tell Dobey and Vaughan on Monday.

On Sunday morning, half an hour early, he parked three blocks from the old church and walked back as slowly and as calmly as he could manage. Inside, the church was cool and dark and smelled of candles and furniture polish. He genuflected quickly and slipped into an empty pew on the side to wait. Outside the confessional an old woman waited her turn, her white hair covered by a red scarf. A teenaged boy, who looked like he’d stopped in on his way to the basketball court, stood beside her. Hutch watched the boy and remembered. “Small boys, small sins,” Father Peters had always said before giving Hutch his penance. All it took was three Hail Marys, one Our Father and a few words in Latin to wipe the slate clean. How many Hail Marys would he need now?

During Mass, he stood and sat and knelt with the faithful, one eye on the altar and one on the door. He listened as the choir sang Ave Maria and sat through a sermon about love and duty and knowing the difference. He put five dollars in the collection plate passed to him by a gray-haired man in a shiny suit. Between Communion and the Recessional Hymn, with still no sign of Starsky, Hutch began to say his own prayers to a God he’d stopped believing in years before.

Half an hour later, he walked back to his car, his back damp with sweat, panic nipping at his heels like a hungry dog. He stood in the street, one hand shielding his eyes against the noon sun and took one long, last look around before getting in the car.

He knew he couldn’t go home. And he couldn’t do what he really wanted to—walk into the Jungle Room waving his badge and his gun in Danny’s face and demanding to see Starsky. So he drove the only place he could think of.

“Hey, Huggy,” he said as he pulled out a stool from the bar.

“Hey, yourself. You still minus your better half?”

“Yeah.” He sat and rubbed at his eyes with both hands. “I was supposed to meet him this morning and he never showed. I’m sure he’s fine.” It sounded even more like a lie when he said it out loud.

“Where?”