The Starshine Connection Read online

  Slayton doubted whether this was Mercy—or if there was even anyone by that name—but was sure that this had been the woman of Kiko’s fantasies, his girlfriend.

  “She was so pretty,” Kiko kept saying, as if that made everything alright. It seemed to soothe him.

  The preliminaries dispensed with, the cholos, at least five of them, proceeded to take their pleasure with the woman in the bedroom… and with Kiko. Kiko had probably kneeled before every member in the gang at one time or another, and it did nothing to keep the crap from getting pummelled out of him, save for providing delays between stompings.

  It was also clear that Kiko had been given Starshine, described as agua fria, cold water. Low-riders certainly could not afford the stuff if they were not linked up in some way with the manufacturing and distribution ring itself. The evidence was shaky, but coalescing fast. Kiko’s reference to Starshine was clearly distinctive from the times the cholos had invested niggling portions of their mota and liquor. He also thought that Kiko might make more effective deterrent evidence against the use of Starshine for someone like Anna Drake than all the preaching he might do. It was entirely possible Kiko had been screwed up chemically by the special moonshine.

  “Kiko, I want you to go back to the barrio with me. I want you to point out the cholos to me. They won’t see us this time. Understand?” It was the only possibility Slayton had.

  “Sure,” said Kiko, polishing off his french dip. “We’ll hide. They won’t see you, they won’t see Kiko. But Kiko will see them!”

  “Then we’ll go see Mercy. Would you like to see your girlfriend, Kiko?”

  “Sure! I know where she lives!”

  Slayton mentally uncrossed his fingers. It was the break he had been hoping for. Kiko was clearly excited by the prospect as well. Not getting beat up and seeing Mercy all in the same day! It was almost too much for Kiko’s mind to encompass, but now an idiotic smile seemed permanently nailed onto his face.

  If Kiko could only point out Mercy to Slayton, that would be all Slayton needed. He did not want to implicate the retarded man in his own actions in any way. Kiko had more than his share of problems.

  Lucius knocked on the hotel room door. Kiko jumped.

  “Hey, Ben,” Lucius said, his smile fading at the strange sight of Kiko sitting amidst the wasteland that had been the dinner tray. “Uh—who’s this?”

  “A special guest of mine, Lucius,” said Slayton. “Why don’t you two sit and chat while I grab a fast shower? Kiko’s a conversational whiz.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then you and me and him are going to dress ratty and cruise the barrio in that eyesore you picked out for me.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “How can I tell you this, Lucius?” Slayton gave a sympathetic shrug. “Kiko’s going to find me a girl.”

  10

  One evening of indoctrination in the barrio was all that Slayton had required. He realized now that the brand new-looking Trans-Am would attract no notice in that neighborhood. Despite the general poverty of the area, the low-rider cars dozing against the curbstones in a dozen places obviously had a lot of money dumped into their customization. It was the same phenomenon Slayton had observed in the Bronx, years before—red Cadillacs for welfare families. And the life-icon of Los Angeles, above all, was the automobile.

  Kiko managed to direct Slayton without having any useful knowledge of locations; he knew places, but not names. He indicated where to turn, and became agitated if there was any significance to the area. Lucius, befuddled by Slayton’s apparent lack of methodology, stayed quietly nervous in the cramped back seat of the psuedo-sportscar.

  The neon- and flyspecked watering holes littering the periphery of the barrio area all looked identical, all sporting roughly the same selection of road-weary whores and debilitated human garbage. Few low-riders were to be found in this part of town; the bar clientele here was composed of the work-booted blue-collars and unskilled general laborers. Sex was twenty dollars per orgasm, performed in the nearest convenient place. The domestic swill-water beers were overshadowed by Dos Equis and Triple-X. The buildings were wasted, laid open like wounds in the night. A whole street of them bore an unmistakable resemblance to a heavy firefight zone.

  Kiko was the only one who could tell them which places to go.

  “Kiko goes to the bars sometimes. Mercy is there, sometimes. She dances with men and they give her money.” That was all he would say. It seemed to be the only depth at which he perceived “Mercy’s” profession, as well.

  The place to which Kiko pointed repeatedly was emblazoned with a sputtering neon-tube sign proclaiming the establishment to be El Condor. Slayton stopped his own silver bird across the street and several paces down from the bar.

  Two blocks behind the Trans-Am, a slow convoy of low-riders broke apart and infiltrated the side streets. Slayton had made them blocks ago. He would have preferred to snatch Mercy off the street and high-speed it onto less fiery turf, but there was no other way to accomplish the purpose of his trip except Kiko’s way.

  “Kiko will go inside now,” he said.

  “We’ll all go in, Kiko,” Slayton said.

  “You can’t.”

  “Why?” Slayton had expected another childish condition, or an irrational reason why they could not go with him into El Condor.

  Suddenly, Kiko’s voice resonated, low and methodical. It sounded like the voice of perfect, deadly reason, if only for a single utterance: “Because you can’t go in there. You’re gaviotas. You can’t go in.” He got out of the car by himself, moving exaggeratedly, like a cinema hero on the vengeance trail.

  When Lucius made a move to follow Kiko out of the car, Slayton stayed him.

  “What the hell is going on, Ben? He’s not going in that place alone—?”

  “You don’t get it, Lucius. You and I are gaviotas, gringos. We’d stir up more trouble in there than two men can handle. And we wouldn’t get anything out of it. Kiko moves in and out of the bars with relative impunity. Sure, he gets boffed around for drinks and such—but he knows that. He’s willing to go in there anyway, to get Mercy out for us with no hassle.”

  “Couldn’t he use a little help?” Lucius said, with a cheesy expression on his face. “I mean, a guy like him—he’s got a good chunk of his attic insulation missing, Ben, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “That’s just it. Nobody has ever offered Kiko the opportunity to be a man, to brave it out. Nobody gave a shit until I saved his ass from the cholos. He has enough brains to think he owes me one. Whether he does or doesn’t isn’t important; what is important is that that poor bastard was never given a chance by anybody. He can do something besides be a punching bag. He’s going in there knowing that he can use his ‘weakness’ as an advantage—to get me what I asked him for!” Slayton’s face was flushing red with anger at the whole helpless situation. “Are you too goddam stupid to see what he’s doing, Lucius?”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay. Sorry.”

  Slayton’s eyes never left Kiko as he shambled across the street and entered El Condor.

  “Trouble,” he said, after a minute.

  The flashy, chrome-encrusted low-riders who had dogged them earlier were beginning to ooze out of the woodwork. Twice the parked Trans-Am was cruised, all heads within the moving auto turned in Slayton’s direction. Another car slotted itself into the row of trucks and tired autos in front of the El Condor. Four cholos unhorsed themselves and sauntered arrogantly into the bar.

  “C’mon, Kiko,” Lucius muttered to himself. “Goddam building’s not big enough to take this long…”

  “She might not be in there,” Slayton said. “He could be just waiting around. She might be out on call. That might be her, for instance.”

  He indicated a brown and tan Bronco that had just ground to a dust-clouded halt in the parking lot. An overweight Mexican in a yoked shirt and a battered felt cowboy hat jumped down and rushed around to open the door for a woman who did not look ba
ttered or common enough to be his wife.

  “Fodongas and forrazos; we got ’em both, step right up,” Slayton said. “I’d say that was a forrazo.”

  “Huh?” Lucius was lost.

  “A fodonga, my dear colleague, is like the whores you see on Sunset Boulevard—stringy, sallow, track-marks up one arm and down the other, comprende? A forrazo is of a little better stock. The cleavage you see is real. And the price is probably higher than for your average street whore. Take the makeup away, and she still probably looks pretty good.”

  “Oh,” said Lucius, unnerved by the whole topic. “Here come the shock-absorber marines again. Listen, what if we have to leave?” His body involuntarily crouched lower in the seat as the low-rider passed again, this time on the opposite side of the street.

  “Kiko knows we might not be here when he comes out. He said it was okay, that this—the barrio—was his home.”

  “How lucky for him.”

  “He has graciously volunteered to be my eyes and ears in the barrio regarding this Starshine thing. He seems to be accomplishing more than your boys.” He had stung Lucius, and knew it, but having made the point, he shifted to more immediate concerns. “I think it would be a good idea to let him do just that. It’s going to hot up if we hang around. Let’s park somewhere else for a while and then come back.”

  “Kiko can take care of himself?”

  “He’ll check for the car. If we don’t show up by closing, he knows he’ll see me mañana.”

  “Fine by me.”

  Slayton started the Trans-Am and pulled easily out. As he did, Kiko was booted out of the entrance to El Condor by the gang of cholos who had entered moments before. The sight of the man sprawled in the dirt of the parking lot cancelled all Slayton’s reservations about leaving the Trans-Am.

  The gang jostled Kiko into the cleft between their own Chevy and a parked pickup truck overloaded with house-painting odds and ends. Slayton spun the Trans-Am around and ground to a stop, blocking the far end of the tunnel formed by the parked vehicles.

  “Lucius, I want you to be threatening as hell with that Magnum you’ve got wanning your armpit. Most of these dudes are probably packed, and they’ll try to stand if we challenge them!” With that, Slayton jacked his own door open and was out. He knew that members of Chicano gangs rarely just walked away from anything.

  He could not see Kiko, only the cholos surrounding him. The closest assailants froze, their eyes registering the size of Lucius’s hogleg. He had the trigger thumbed all the way back.

  The gang members scattered in every direction they could improvise, which included over each other, in an insane spread, like ants on a hill. Slayton shouted, but nothing came of it.

  “Don’t shoot them!” he tossed back at Lucius, as he bounded toward where Kiko lay on the ground.

  The low-riding Chevy was blocked off, and the cholos gave it up, since it would not get them anywhere. People inside El Condor were already gawking out the door to see what the commotion was about. The door was in Lucius’s direct line of fire. They ducked quickly back inside the bar.

  Slayton had also already made the other two cars. One bracketed each end of the street. The El Condor was in the middle, and escape was neatly cut off.

  Chasing the cholos would be stupid. Slayton gave it up even before he rounded the east end of the weather-worn building, turning back just as Lucius shouted, “Ben! He’s hurt!”

  He ran back. Kiko had not gotten up, and Lucius was kneeling over him. Kiko was slathered messily with dirt from where he had squirmed around in the muddy puddles formed by the mix of the dirt with his own blood.

  Lucius’s free hand came up lacquered in fresh blood. “Jesus Christ, Ben, he’s been stabbed—oh, god, more than once—look!”

  There were at least a dozen knife wounds and one knife still in his body, as the men discovered when they rolled Kiko to a sitting position against the Chevy. His eye lids were closed, as though he were asleep. He tried to inhale, choked loudly, and then sneezed, blowing a spray of blood and snot over Lucius and Slayton. He was attempting to talk, but could not.

  “He’s had it,” Slayton said, barely above a whisper. He had seen enough death to say so unreservedly. Hating himself for what had happened, he nevertheless forced the question out: “Kiko! Kiko!. Mercy—is she here? Is she inside? Did you see her?”

  Kiko nodded. The movement was painful to him, and he keeled forward, trying to grab Slayton for support. Slayton went down on one knee and caught him. The people in El Condor were still gaping like frightened idiots. It would do no good for him to exhort them to phone a paramedic unit on behalf of the neighborhood joke, the local moron, the imbecile who would go down on a cholo for a drink, or who would make an ass of himself just to avoid a beating. No way.

  Kiko’s breath hitched, and he was gone. Slayton felt the body against his diminish. The arm around his shoulder, which had been hanging on so desperately for life, went permanently limp, and dangled. Wordlessly, Slayton lifted the dead man in his arms and took him back to the Trans-Am. Lucius knew he would take the body back with him to the morgue, that he would oversee its disposition, that though Kiko had been a pauper, he would not go to the grave that way. Slayton had buried several of his friends. Lucius did not expect him to change his ethics now.

  Kiko was light, almost too light for a person who had, a moment before, been living and breathing. Slayton laid him gently down on the back seat of the Trans-Am. He knew that Mercy, if she had been in the bar at all, was gone by now—had fled with all the others who might have something to bide from the police, who were sure to show up soon. The low-riders bracketing the street made no move. If the cops were to show up, they’d leave. Slayton decided to wait a while.

  He pushed the tilting seat back into place and punched open the glove compartment. Inside was his nickel-plated .45 automatic, holding—as usual—a nine-shot clip of scooped and crosshatched dumdum loads, with the hammer down on another load in the chamber. The audience from the bar caught a glimpse as he hefted it, and they faded inside again—those few who had remained and not fled through the rear door.

  As Slayton walked past Lucius, he said, “Get in there. Mercy’s not around, but see if you can find us a shot or two of decent whisky.” With no protest to offer, Lucius swung his own pistol to his side and pushed into the El Condor.

  Slayton put his first slug through the windshield of the Chevy. Glass blew inward all over the tuck-and-roll upholstery, and someone inside the bar screamed in panic. The bullet plowed into the seat, spreading and flattening and destroying the center, knocking chunks of yellow foam out to float in the air. The dumdum slugs were designed for close-range demolition on a particularly sloppy scale.

  Methodically, Slayton blew away each tire in succession. After the minor explosions of air, the car sank down onto its rims like a wounded animal. Another shot, and a cascade of black oil dribbled from its underbelly. He paced around it, like a browser at a supermarket, pausing to smash the driver’s window with a flat-handed blow. He angled the .45 inside, and took out the dashboard instruments with a single violent shot. Glass and plastic shrapnel bounced around inside the car as Lucius reemerged, toting his gun in one hand, and a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other.

  Across the lot, the Bronco fired up and sped away too fast, bouncing over the unpaved surface behind the bar.

  Slayton took a long pull of the whisky. “Give me your gun,” he said to Lucius, after handing him the automatic. He knew that Lucius would be packing the heaviest loads the monster Magnum could handle.

  Slayton cocked the hammer and put three well-placed shots through the hood of the Chevy, neatly drilling the engine block and rendering the entire car a nonmobile collection of worthless junk. He handed the warm Magnum back to Lucius, and heaved the nearly full whisky bottle through the front windshield, or what remained of it. He thought that his message was pretty clear.

  He had resisted the urge to destroy the gas tank from a distance, send the whole o
ffensive pile of cholo trash up in a teeth-wracking explosion, give the cops a fireball to fix location by. When the bottle crashed through the front of the car, the picture in Slayton’s mind had been of Kiko, with the switchblade hanging out of his stomach.

  He turned back to the Trans-Am. The guards on the opposing ends of the narrow street had vanished.

  “What now?” Lucius said.

  “The cops are on their way. Let’s wait for them and have them escort us the hell out of here.”

  11

  The red message light on Slayton’s hotel room telephone was flashing urgently as the men walked into the room. It was the only light disrupting the uniform darkness, and it was the color of danger.

  It took the desk clerk a few seconds to find the memo. Slayton assumed it would be something from Winship. If the right honorable Senator Franklin Reed were tied up in the Starshine ring, as Slayton suspected he might be, the intramural meddling with the investigation would be first-class, unlike the CIA amateurs assigned to the townhouse of Reed’s main subordinate. Perhaps the implication of Reed was just another in a complex web of smoke screens.

  The number was local. Slayton flashed it toward Lucius, who shook his head. “Can we get some room service booze or something? All of a sudden I feel like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.”

  “In a minute.” Slayton dialed the number. Seven rings later, just as he was about to give up, the call was answered.

  “Yeah?” A woman or girl answered, a faint trace of Spanish inflection coloring her pronunciation.

  “I received a message at my hotel telling me to call this number. Well?” Now Slayton was in no mood for games.

  “Oh,” she said, realizing who he was. Her voice went up in pitch. “Oh! Hold on a second, could you?”

  The receiver was clunked down, and Slayton heard hurried footsteps and a slammed door. It was rather like listening to an old episode of “Doc Savage” on the radio. The footsteps returned.