The Starshine Connection (8 page)

“Extremely unlikely. I used the name Rutledge; I mentioned Washington. They probably called back to verify immediately. And
our man in the townhouse, or whoever he works for, has probably clued them already that the investigation is alive and well.
But I’m hoping the locations will provide some further lead.”

“It’s the only direct connection you have to Los Angeles, at any rate. That’s supposed to be the source of Starshine.”

“Yes, sir. I only wish I had known about the attache and his relationship to our own Senator Franklin Reed. I’d be willing
to bet that if I’d identified myself as either him or Reed, I wouldn’t have gotten hung up on. Damn it.” Slayton was piqued
at having blown a ripe lead. If he had waited to find out who owned the townhouse, he might not have tipped off the men in
California.

On the other hand, if Reed or someone like him were involved, they’d be alerted already.

He dropped the ledger on Winship’s desk. “I suppose we can also consider this useless as of right now, too. Certainly the
numbers are different now, if nothing else.” The discipline with which he had observed the operation run in Washington had
to be at least as good on the other side of the country. The Starshine people were doing better than the CIA; Slayton had
to give them that.

“Accomplish what you can in L.A.,” Winship said. “From the look of things, I’m going to have my hands full running interference
for the Starshine investigation itself.”

“You can handle senators, Ham, even rabid ones. You’ve done it before. And think of what we gain.”

No one needed to be reminded; governmental corruption was a sore point with both men. Winship thought that their mutual dedication—though
it issued from distinctly different consciousnesses—was probably the only thing they both had truly in common. It reinforced
the basic contradictory tenet of their stormy but successful relationship: Ben Slayton was a renegade, but he was right.

Lucius Bonnard had emphatically
not
gone Hollywood.

Slayton, however, was not about to let a prime opportunity to rib his friend slip past undocumented, and out of habit he opted
for sarcasm: “‘Saturday Night Fever’ really changed your life, didn’t it, Lucius?”

The Treasury man got a pained expression. His dress would have attracted undue attention in Washington; in Los Angeles he
was just another pedestrian. “Squat on this, old friend,” he smiled back poisonously. “I see you’re still dressing like a
cross between a gay lumberjack and a devotee of the Jordache look. Come to think of it, that’s two different descriptions
of the same thing, isn’t it? Heh.”

“Are you really wearing a gold disco chain around your neck?” Slayton could not contain his mirth. “Come on, you can tell
me.” Before Lucius had changed his “look” he had been one of the black-shoes, white-socks crowd that Slayton had written up
in his brief but pungently worded account of the attire of the Department’s field men.

“Listen, I’ll make a deal with you,” he said.

“The mark of a true Hollywood type.”

“Oh, shut up—look, leave my clothes out of this and I won’t blow how you had hair implants on your chest.”

“Why, Lucius, you seem piqued.” Slayton was still grinning. He had not seen Lucius Bonnard for almost three years.

“Let’s put it this way,” Lucius said, as they collected Slayton’s single suitcase at L.A. International’s infamous baggage
claim. “You managed, in one brief, brilliant move inspired by total stupidity, to bitch up a lead that my boys here have been
salivating over for months. The addresses of the Starshine people. Jesus hopped-up friggin’ Christ, Ben, why couldn’t you
have waited?” He lifted Slayton’s suitcase and carried it along for him as they made their attempt to walk through Religion
Row—the outward-bound breezeway of the airport traditionally jammed with representatives of every crazy sect, cult, following,
charity, and pseudoreligion known to the diverse madness of the West Coast. Followers scampered forward, proffering literature,
lectures, scams, nuttiness, and flowers, all for some silly price or other.

Slayton, like Lucius, had long since learned the only real way to fade by such passive aggression was to think native—they
never wasted their time with residents. That meant avoiding eye contact. This had an even sillier side effect—Angelenos traditionally
breezed past the most provocative scenes without apparent notice or comment. The only thing to which they paid actual attention
on the street would be, say, to a spontaneous gunfight.

He had also learned his lesson about the generosity of the so-called sciences and religions that had the gall to waste everyone’s
patience by proselytizing at the airport. He had once accepted a thick book, a treatise on the fundamental basis of some faith,
thrust below his nose by some equally anonymous Middle Eastern exchange student. As he attempted to walk away with it without
further comment or any sort of gratuity, he was asked for the book back. Slayton graciously gave him a copy of the free magazine
he had found inside the folding pocket of the seat before him in first class, deemed it an exchange especially adherent to
the principals of the faith—the magazine was more entertaining than the book, and he, therefore, was demonstrating the principal
of self-sacrifice—and continued walking away only far enough to dump the book into a trash bin whose plastic bag was mostly
full of flat, undrunk Coca-Cola from a snack bar that was at least as big a scam as the religion. He turned and smiled back
at his benefactor, flashed a peace sign, and was off.

Pity he could not connect Starshine up with crackpot religions. He ached to put such obvious bunko schemes into proper social
perspective. That is, bust the hell out of a few of them, dig out some of the dirt he knew they had to be hiding.

Dealing with them was just a part of Slayton’s acclimation routine. He did it, in varying degrees, for every city and country
he visited. He had to get himself in tune quickly with the rhythms of the diverse locations he often found himself in on behalf
of his calling. It was an interior trick of his, a when-in-Rome procedure that allowed him to appear native and comfortable
in almost any environment.

When in L.A., think first of wacko religions. Proceed to the slummy down-and-outness of Hollywood; once glittery, now seedy,
its basic promise unchanged. Think rich ethnic mixes and the elegant sham of Beverly Hills; the strange vindication of the
open-market system that was the movie industry, and the sausage factory that was television. Loud, tacky, vulgar, cheap, and
exhilarating—endlessly frustrating and timelessly hypnotic. Los Angeles was the vanguard of contemporary American culture.
Whatever was done, was done first in the City of the Angels.

And if Americans were to embrace any new vices, Slay-ton thought, they would most likely be vices that at least had their
roots here. Starshine fit into the equation perfectly.

“You still have the reports on those addresses,” he said. It was not actually a question.

“Oh yeah,” Lucius shrugged. “All in the computer, and it won’t do you a goddam bit of good—it doesn’t even make interesting
light reading.”

“Give me the short version,” Slayton said. “The car’s in the lot?”

“Yeah, it’s what you asked for—L.A. chic.”

“Oh, no,” he said, grimacing. “Spare me.”

Lucius led the way across the sea of parked automobiles. “We cross-matched the information with suspects as soon as we got
it. It was going through the computers even as we were raiding the houses. Your phone call was apparently enough. We didn’t
find anything except some crummy duplexes full of illegal aliens.”

“You probably would have anyway. As soon as the theft of the Washington ledger was discovered, they would have been alerted.
And it doesn’t make sense to have direct phone connections to the actual target buildings, the places where the stuff is manufactured.
Just another link in a chain. I’ve seen the security paranoia of the Washington end of the chain. If L.A., where it
originates,
is even
remotely
like it, then all tracks will be covered so well you won’t find them. I want to see everything on those addresses and check
them out myself.”

“It’s your expense account. But don’t keep us in the dark, okay?”

“Sure, fine.”

“One more thing,” Lucius said.

Slayton shot him a cold glance, and he tossed his hands in mock surrender.

“How about we grab some Mexican food at Villa Taxco tonight?”

He rolled his eyes. “Positively. My treat.”

“That’s great,” Lucius said, “because here’s your car.”

Slayton was staring at a silver Trans-Am with an ugly black eagle on the hood. Lucius laughed long and loud at his buddy.

“Son of a bitch,” he murmured.

The addresses were all down in the East L.A. barrio, a world of poverty with the notorious Watts as its eastern border. The
ruptured paving and substandard housing looked to Slayton like a war zone. The residents, mostly poor Hispanics and blacks,
reminded Slayton of the penniless indigents he had seen on the run from the Viet Cong.

The contrast with the sweetly sickening waste of a week spent partying with Washington’s so-called gentry was bitter. It boiled
up in the back of Slayton’s throat.

He could not have been more out of place among a tribe of Eskimos. Being white was the first strike. His clothing and the
Trans-Am would have been strikes two and three if he had not taken some time to ditch them in favor of more practical local
camouflage.

Dressed in worn jeans, a T-shirt, and combat boots, he piloted an old Ford van down one of many, many side streets. The dealer
from which he had purchased the vehicle had done such a hard sell that Slayton was positive the thing had two, maybe three
weeks of life left, at the most. It was all he needed for the job.

Slayton had not permitted his Spanish to rust away while in Washington, and this proved his greatest asset. It certainly was
a plus in dealing with the tenants of the duplexes Lucius had passed over so briefly.

By spinning a yarn about the U.S. Census, and dropping enough hints relating to immigration laws to make the twelve-member
family crammed into the four-room apartment jumpy and gun-shy, Slayton set them up. His punchline was a change-of-heart understanding
that their cover would not be blown, which the elderly mother—the spokesperson for the clan in this case—seemed to accept
graciously enough. Their conversation through the screen door* had absolutely nothing to do with the Starshine ring.

Slayton, however, had discovered quickly that the people were new tenants, and had been ushered in by the former residents,
one or two of whom had become neighborhood characters during their stay in the apartment. He applied this knowledge during
his visits to the follow-up addresses.

One seemed to be a
borrachal,
a drunk, while the others were described as
batos suaves,
people generally accepted in the neighborhood. The ones who drank too much apparently made grand fun of sadistically bullying
a man who was known in the neighborhood as “Kiko.” When Slayton visited a randomly chosen house down the block from the duplexes
and asked where Kiko could be found, he was immediately suspected of being the police. But these tenants showed a sort of
resigned acceptance, not fear. Kiko was a
tarugo,
and it was generally agreed that he was always getting into trouble with the law not through malice, but because he was
un calabaza
—a dumbbell.

Slayton had left the nondescript van parked some ten blocks away when he decided to quit for the night. The people to whom
he spoke wanted to help, yes, but more urgently, they wanted him off their doorstep. They seemed afraid, and not of Slayton.
He thought that it might be to his advantage to seek out Kiko.

As it turned out, Kiko found him.

There was little action in the barrio that night. Most of the after-dusk crowd hung out around the borders of shabby buildings
advertising LICORES in peeling paint—get-togethers where everyone knew everyone else. There was little outward evidence of
the Chicano gangs or the
cholos
in the low-riding Chevies and Pontiacs. They had split their
territorio
to cruise Hollywood; here their reign was secure.

Slayton wondered if the latest government welfare and social service cuts might be the impetus they needed to migrate, violence
and all, to wealthier turf.

He moved along the streets with wariness and caution. And when he pulled open the driver’s door to his van, he was instantly
aware that it was occupied. He tensed automatically, but he did not see an assailant. The man inside the van was not even
conscious.

Slayton relaxed. The back door of the van was incapable of being locked. He had taken a little bit of cash and a small stash
of dope with him—things that might have proven to have informational or bribery value. There was nothing else inside worth
locking up.

The man was dressed in tatters and cast-offs, and was snoring loudly. Despite his outward wear and tear, he did not appear
to be very old. He snorted and scratched himself. The odor pulsing off his clothing was breath-stoppingly fetid and stale.
It almost made Slayton’s eyes water. He hesitated, not wanting to make enough noise opening the squeaking, grinding rear door
to awaken the man.

Then he remembered that he had gone from Washington to a cross-country flight to the barrio without stopping, and fatigue
was beginning to make inroads on his concentration and stamina. He marched around and jerked the rear door open.

“Come on,
cabrón,
let’s go. Rise and shine!”

No reaction. The sleeping man curled up in the rear of the van continued to snore.

“My friend, you’re being difficult,” Slayton said, reaching in to poke the man, and instantly regretting it for two reasons.

The effect on the man was galvanic. He came awake like a shot, eyes snapping open to reveal hard, bloodshot whites and dilated
pupils. He shrieked and retreated toward the front of the van, cowering; agitating the air already thick with his smell.