{"id":335,"date":"2023-12-03T05:44:11","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T05:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/?p=335"},"modified":"2023-12-03T05:44:11","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T05:44:11","slug":"december-3rd-hidden-in-plain-sight-by-acl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/?p=335","title":{"rendered":"December 3rd: Hidden in Plain Sight by ACL"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Advent Calendar story about Hutch’s door.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There were a lot of things that didn’t make sense about Hutch, even if he could come up with some half-assed reason for every last one of them\u2014the tacky red plastic Biorhythm Calculator ‘for the enlightened woman’, the battered astrology magazine lying among the clutter on his dash, the combined blackstrap molasses and desiccated liver in his breakfast smoothies (“It’ll put lead in your pencil, Starsk”).<\/p>\n

Top of that list, in Starsky’s estimation, had to be the fact that Hutch only started keeping his apartment key on the ledge above his front door after<\/em> his place had been broken into. Twice.<\/p>\n

Naturally Starsky had questioned the wisdom of the key’s new hiding place, but Hutch had replied that it might as well stay there since they now knew from bitter experience that anyone with a nefarious motive could cross Hutch’s threshold at will, never mind what he did with his apartment key.<\/p>\n

The thing was, Hutch had a point. The locked front door at the canal cottage hadn’t stopped him being kidnapped and forcibly addicted to heroin. Nor had the lock on his new apartment in Venice Place kept a dead rat out of the refrigerator. On neither occasion did he or Starsky have any idea how the bad guys had got through the apartment door. If the lock didn’t stop them, went Hutch’s logic, then he might as well go ahead and keep his door-key somewhere his friends could find it if they needed a place to hide, or to hang out for a while, or simply to shoot the breeze.<\/p>\n

This rationale drove Starsky crazy, but he could recognize it as Hutch’s stand against Fate, his way of refusing to give in to the chaos of the world. If it was still Open House at Hutch’s place, in defiance of the violent events life threw at him, then he hadn’t been beaten\u2014or so Hutch believed.<\/p>\n

Over the months that followed, Starsky came to wonder if the malevolent forces of the universe hadn’t taken the mere existence of Hutch’s doorkey on the lintel as a personal challenge. It sure seemed like it.<\/p>\n

It started slow. When Hutch took in Molly\/Pete ahead of Christmas, and Kiko dropped by, the key meant the kids could come and go and watch TV beside Starsky’s festively decorated tree\u2014hey, it wasn’t like they could take a kid along with them when they went to work. It turned out that Molly\/Pete had the smarts to pretend to the diamond-hunting thugs who came by that there was<\/em> no key hidden just above their heads, and they still went ahead and shot the lock off anyhow, which just proved Hutch’s point that a door-key was no kind of home defense. Score three for three.<\/p>\n

Then there was the time Starsky and Hutch found Huggy making himself at home at Venice Place after Prudholm’s men had attacked him in the vendetta against Starsky\u2014Hutch’s door-key policy vindicated once again. He put the key right back on the ledge where Huggy had found it, and there it stayed.<\/p>\n

Granted, Hutch soon discovered that the key gave Fifi open access to his underwear whenever the mood took her, but then it was Starsky’s place that was broken in to that week anyhow, through the bedroom window no less\u2014no key necessary, his blues albums and Playboy magazines still gone.<\/p>\n

After Hutch’s nurse Diana Harmon took home visits too far and claimed the honor of the fourth and fifth break-ins at Hutch’s place, Starsky just tidied up and played down the risk, something he kicked himself for in hindsight. But hey, the woman had simply talked her way in the first time\u2014no doorkey needed, just a too-trusting landlord who believed in Hutch’s fictitious kid sister from Boston\u2014with spilled spaghetti the only casualty. Starsky had some strong words with Hutch’s landlord about being more careful, but the key stayed on the ledge.<\/p>\n

After Diana returned and trashed Hutch’s place, Starsky just put him up for the night and risked suggesting, “Maybe you oughtta find a better place to hide your spare key?” Looking back he couldn’t help thinking he should have watched the lady, not the key, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.<\/p>\n

They went over next morning and changed the lock together, Huggy heartlessly heckling the state of Hutch’s battered possessions as they did so, and Hutch kept the new key firmly in his pocket. Starsky was relieved. But his sense of security proved false\u2014Diana was lying in wait, biding her time until Hutch came home and let his guard down, naked and vulnerable as a horror movie heroine.<\/p>\n

After that sixth break-in ended with Starsky holding Hutch up as he bled from a knife wound while Diana screamed in rage, Hutch came home from the hospital and put his key right back up on the ledge above the door.<\/p>\n

Starsky grabbed it straight back down and brandished it in his face.<\/p>\n

“What’s the matter with you? You want to take your chances on some more mortal wounds? Take years off my life with worry, huh?”<\/p>\n

Hutch calmly held out his hand. “C’mon, Starsk. I had it in my pocket when she broke in and that didn’t save me from being stabbed, did it? Anyway, how can Kiko and Molly drop by if they can’t let themselves in?”<\/p>\n

Starsky looked mulishly at Hutch’s outstretched hand. “Pete can’t even reach the doorjamb. How’s she gonna reach the key?”<\/p>\n

“She jumps up and knocks it down with her cap.”<\/p>\n

Starsky gave in, handed over the key, and went to make coffee so Hutch wouldn’t burn himself trying with his bad arm.<\/p>\n

By the time Hutch was up to consorting with a Russian ballerina, Starsky was back in the habit of feeling for Hutch’s key above the door and knowing that if the key wasn’t there, Hutch was inside.<\/p>\n

After the seventh and eighth break-ins at Hutch’s place\u2014both courtesy of the ex-Mrs Hutchinson\u2014they were too busy reeling from Vanessa’s death, and then Hutch’s concussion at the hands of murderous jewel thieves, and then running from a murder rap and Internal Affairs, to even think about Hutch’s key. Later Starsky refrained from pointing out that Huggy’s home security arrangements were far more sensible, discretion being the better part of valor given that Starsky too had begun keeping a key above his door, the seemingly inexplicable decision easily explained by the fact that Hutch now made liberal use of it\u2014mi casa es su casa<\/em> and all that.<\/p>\n

But it seemed as if history was repeating. The very next week saw Hutch again arriving home to find two men trashing his apartment, looking for stolen goods diverted by a foxy lady\u2014name of Lisa Kendrick, this time. Again Hutch was knocked unconscious and again liberated from captivity by one David Starsky.<\/p>\n

It was after this break-in\u2014number nine, who’d believe that?\u2014that Starsky decided enough was enough. A cat only has nine lives, after all, and so neither one of them was hiding any keys anywhere any more, if Starsky had anything to do with it. After nine break-ins (nine!) he’d come to two important realizations: a) Hutch took a long time to catch on to things, and b) Starsky needed to take matters into his own hands.<\/p>\n

As he and Hutch sat in the airport lounge, draped in Lisa’s lingerie and the remaining shreds of their own dignity and shrinking under the disapproving gaze of glamorous passers-by, Starsky took a deep breath and ventured in a low voice,<\/p>\n

“Hutch babe, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again\u2014maybe you should find a better place to hide your key. Like on your person at all times.”<\/p>\n

Hutch gave a long-suffering sigh. “Starsk, you know that I think\u2014”<\/p>\n

Starsky rolled his eyes. “What I know<\/em> is that we need to do something to cut back on your head injuries, pal. I’d settle for even a 50% reduction in home invasions right now.”<\/p>\n

He reached over and delicately removed the bra from Hutch’s left shoulder as he continued, “I’m sorry to put a cramp in your well-renowned hospitality, babe, but Huggy does not need a bolt-hole often enough to justify you getting worked over once a week.”<\/p>\n

Hutch mumbled something inaudible in the direction of his shoes.<\/p>\n

Starsky reached across and tilted Hutch’s chin up, the bra still dangling from his hand. “What’s that, Blintz?”<\/p>\n

Hutch scowled. “I said<\/em>,<\/strong> I like knowing you can get in to\u2026 to my place. When you want to. When I want you to.”<\/p>\n

The fierce hug he got in response drew even more disapproving stares from the occupants of the airport lounge, but then Starsky was<\/em> still draped in lingerie.<\/p>\n

So, Starsky went to the payphone and called an emergency locksmith to get the locks changed at Hutch’s place (after Hutch found him a dime for the call) and when the job was done he drove Hutch in the Torino to the hardware store, purchased two strong deadbolts and got some keys cut for the new lock\u2014copies for Starsky, Kiko, Molly\/Pete, Huggy, and (somewhat grudgingly) a spare for Hutch to carry for random stewardesses coming off night shift (Hutch didn’t point out that it had been quite a while since a stewardess had crossed his threshold, even if he couldn’t say the same for Starsky).<\/p>\n

Starsky also quietly got a copy made of his own door key, bought two keyrings and hid them in his jacket while Hutch was looking at a potting bench.<\/p>\n

He took Hutch home to Venice Place and they fixed the deadbolts to the door, top and bottom. Then, while Hutch made coffee, Starsky dug out Hutch’s paint box\u2014which had somehow survived the destruction of every home invasion\u2014and marked two of Hutch’s keys with sky-blue paint and Starsky’s own two keys with as close to Candy Apple red as he could find. He put one of each color next to each keyring on the kitchen table.<\/p>\n

Hutch handed him a coffee cup, steam rising from the top.<\/p>\n

“What’s this, Starsk? Keys to the city?”<\/p>\n

“To your padded cell, more like.”<\/p>\n

Hutch gestured vaguely at Starsky’s groin. “To your chastity belt. That’s why there’s two, it needs double-locking.”<\/p>\n

Starsky winked, lasciviously. “Nah babe, keys to my heart.”<\/p>\n

Hutch socked him gently on the shoulder before touching a keyring gently. He looked up. “Planning on keeping me locked up safe, Starsk?”<\/p>\n

Starsky grinned back recklessly. “Yeah, well, maybe you’re worth saving. Anyhow, you got a key, you can let yourself out. No need to grow your golden hair like Rapunzel.”<\/p>\n

He reached out and brushed back said golden locks from Hutch’s face. “You feel safer?”<\/p>\n

Hutch scrunched his face up, looked up at the ceiling ruefully. “Yeah.”<\/p>\n

“Good. You wanna sleep at mine tonight?”<\/p>\n

“Nah.”<\/p>\n

Starsky pushed the keys around on the table, smearing the paint a little. “You want me to sleep here?”<\/p>\n

Hutch slumped, relieved. “Yeah. Thanks Starsk.” He picked his mug up, leaning back against the table and into Starsky’s side. “We should have kept that fixer-upper last summer. Saved on keys.”<\/p>\n

Starsky did a little I-told-you-so dance, nudged Hutch with his shoulder. “Plenty more wrecks where that one came from.”<\/p>\n

Hutch chinked their mugs together. “Maybe some day, huh?”<\/p>\n

They drank their coffee, and no-one broke the door down, which was a win in Starsky’s book\u2014keyring accepted, future possibilities mooted, no home invasion. Three for three.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Episodes mentioned:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

1.05 The Fix
\n<\/em>2.10 Vendetta
\n<\/em>2.13 Little Girl Lost
\n<\/em>2.19 Starsky’s Lady
\n<\/em>2.25 Starsky and Hutch Are Guilty
\n<\/em>3.03 Fatal Charm
\n<\/em>3.15 A Body Worth Guarding
\n<\/em>3.19 Hutchinson for Murder One<\/em>3.20 Foxy Lady<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Click on the image to view it larger.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Advent Calendar story about Hutch’s door. There were a lot of things that didn’t make sense about Hutch, even if he could come up with some half-assed reason for every last one of them\u2014the tacky red plastic Biorhythm Calculator ‘for the enlightened woman’, the battered astrology magazine lying among the clutter on his dash, … Continue reading “December 3rd: Hidden in Plain Sight by ACL”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fic","category-preslash","category-sfw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advent.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2023\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}