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“How dangerous it is that this man goes loose!” - Act IV, Scene III
Caldwell’s head snapped up.
Starsky stood just inside the door in a tense crouch, a bead drawn on the figure looming over his partner.
“I said drop it!” he repeated.
Caldwell smirked, made as if to drop the sword...and then dropped his body instead, falling behind Hutch with a thud and yanking the blond detective into a deadly embrace. Without so much as a grunt, he rose effortlessly to his feet, Hutch’s body held securely in front of his own, the sword blade pressed against Hutch’s throat.
Starsky blinked. How the hell had the man moved so flaming fast?
“Now,” Caldwell said, moving the sword blade closer to Hutch’s throat. “I believe it is you who will...as you so inelegantly said...drop it.”
Starsky’s brain worked frantically, recalculating the odds given the new information before him. Hutch wasn’t moving as he usually would, either to fight his captor or twist his position to give Starsky a clear shot. He was bleeding from at least two places Starsky could see, and his eyes had that glassy look that suggested he’d gotten a knock on the head at some point.
“Oh, now, Detective...for I presume you are Mr. Hutchinson’s partner,” Caldwell’s amused voice broke into his thoughts. “Don’t you think for a moment that I am not serious.” He moved the sword blade ever so slightly, and Starsky saw Hutch flinch as another rivulet of blood began to trickle down his neck. “Drop your gun, kick it away, and move away from the door.”
Seeing no other choice, Starsky lowered the Beretta to the floor, kicked it a few feet away, then backed slowly away from the room’s only exit.
His weapon never leaving Hutch’s throat, his eyes never leaving Starsky, Caldwell sidled toward the opposite side of the door, kicking the gun several feet further as he passed it. Circling to keep Starsky in his sight, the reviewer paused in the doorway and gave the dark-haired detective a smile that chilled Starsky’s blood.
“I hope, on this momentous occasion,” Caldwell said, his voice as terrifying as his expression, “that you will permit me a slight paraphrase as I take my leave...one last clue for you and Sergeant Hutchinson, as it were?” He shifted his position slightly and proclaimed:
“The treacherous instrument is in thy hand...The point
envenomed, too?”
He raised the sword slightly, as if to deliver the final stroke to Hutch’s neck.
“Then, venom, to thy work!”
Suddenly, he had shoved Hutch forward, virtually into Starsky’s arms. Starsky leapt forward and caught his partner, lowering him gently to the mat, as Caldwell whirled and disappeared from the room.
Starsky didn’t know where or where not to touch his friend; the blood seemed to be everywhere. He yanked a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it carefully to the wound he had seen Caldwell inflict. “Hutch?” he said anxiously as his partner lay motionless against him. “Hutch? You okay? Give me a sign here, pal, willya?”
Hutch managed to drag his eyes open, then reached up and grabbed the square of cloth. “Go after him,” he ordered Starsky weakly. “Hurry up, before he gets outta here.”
“Are you nuts?” Starsky said on a high note. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re bleedin’ like a stuck pig here.”
“It’s just a scratch,” Hutch insisted stubbornly “Go on, go after him...”
Torn, Starsky looked from his friend to the door...and with an explosive sigh of relief saw that Drake had appeared at the entrance. Moving Hutch carefully from his position on Starsky’s thigh, he sprang to his feet and sprinted to the door, snatching up his gun as he went. “Call an ambulance,” he snapped at Drake. “Do it now!”
Then he, too, was gone, sneakered feet pounding down the hall and up the stairs to the theatre parking lot.
Drake paused for a moment to whip out his own handkerchief and press it into Hutch’s hand, so he could staunch the bleeding from another one of the wounds, then ran in the opposite direction to the greenroom.
Starsky burst out the backstage door and scrambled over the hood of the Torino, flinging open the door and hurling himself into the front seat. Twisting the key in the ignition to yank the powerful motor to life, he slammed the door shut and threw the car into reverse, then first. The Torino leapt forward to the alley, speeding in the direction Starsky thought he had seen Caldwell go.
When he reached the end of the alley, however, the streets to either side were empty. There was no sign of the car, and he hadn’t gotten a close enough look at it to troll the area and try to pick it up again. He slammed a hand against the wheel in frustration, then shoved the gear shift again, stomping on the accelerator and backing with a whine back to the theatre parking lot, where he parked haphazardly. In seconds, he was back in the combat room, kneeling beside his wounded and decreasingly lucid partner.
“Hutch...” Starsky said gently, scooting behind Hutch and cradling his head in his lap as Drake also re-entered the room. “Hey, what’s goin’ on, man? If this is just a scratch, where’re you goin’?”
“Sword...” Hutch muttered, trying to open his eyes and failing. “Has to be..like the scene...”
Uncomprehending, Starsky looked over at Drake, whose own brow was knit in a puzzled frown. “The scene?” Drake said urgently, bending over the blond detective and trying desperately to figure out what Hutch was talking about. “Ken, what about the sword?”
“Venom...” Hutch mumbled. “Venom...to thy work...”
Drake straightened so quickly that Starsky’s vertebra winced in sympathy. “There must have been something on the sword, some kind of poison or something...that’s how Laertes kills Hamlet in the final scene.”
There was a faint sound of sirens through the open door. Drake scrambled to his feet. “I’d better go flag them down, or they won’t be able to get in,” he said somewhat inanely, and dashed out of the room.
Starsky, blood all over his hands and clothes, found himself in the unusual position of having no idea what to do. When he’d been poisoned, they had at least had some period of time where he was clicking on all cylinders. Whatever this stuff was that Caldwell had given Hutch obviously acted a lot faster.
“Starsk...” came from his lap.
“Right here, Hutch, right here,” Starsky said, rubbing Hutch’s uninjured arm soothingly. “Shhh...try not to talk, pal. Help’s on the way. We’re gonna fix you up good as new, with a few more interestin’ scars to show off to the next lucky lady.”
“Roz...” Hutch muttered, somehow in response to that, and Starsky realized that Hutch couldn’t possibly know that Roz was dead. His eyes blinked open for a moment and he looked up at Starsky bewilderedly. “Starsk...what doin’ here...what happened?”
“I’ll tell ya later,” Starsky told him with a wry smile, as the ambulance attendants charged into the room.
They shooed him away, of course, and he hovered anxiously on the fringes while they tended Hutch’s wounds and took immediate measures to counteract whatever drug he had been given. Based on his vital signs, they eventually determined that it was some form of sedative or muscle relaxant, something to slow him down and knock him out, but not necessarily kill him. Starsky breathed a sigh of relief at this conclusion, but still elected to ride in the ambulance with his friend. Drake, stunned at the news of Roz’ and Jim’s deaths, wanted to stay at the theatre until the coroner and crime lab teams had finished with the crime scenes and the two bodies, so Jack Perry and Lowell Abbott offered to take care of the Torino and Hutch’s Ford.
In the midst of the excitement of racing vehicles and scurrying people, Lowell Abbott paused to prepare a number of hastily lettered signs and post them on the front doors of the theatre:
“ALL PERFORMANCES CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE”