The Starshine Connection (19 page)

“Run it down,” Slayton said, his mind elsewhere.

“Okay. We got Paz two hours after your search-and-destroy at the Marina apartments. He was holed up in the barrio with a lot
of gang members; the whole crowd was pretty pliant by the time we showed up. Lot of dope-smoking.”

“How’d you get to him if there were so many of the gang there?”

Lucius grinned. “My gang’s bigger than his gang. Paz implicated two others in the stabbing, and they’re all in custody. The
three Starshine distilleries were staked out and raided as soon as workers showed up. There don’t appear to be more, but of
course—”

“There will always be one someplace,” Slayton said. Not fatalistically, merely in passing. They both knew the truth.

“Right. Ortiz is in the infirmary. Him I don’t need to tell you about. Brian Hill has blown town; even his boyfriends don’t
know where he is. You scared the shit out of him, m’boy. I suppose you know Ortiz is also taking the rap for the damages to
the Marina. I think you succeeded in making a good Catholic out of him. At least, you put the fear of the devil into him too.
We’re hanging onto the distilleries as hard evidence.”

Lucius had made a neat package out of the entire sequence, with one exception. “What about Mercy, Ben? If you want, we’ve
got her as an accessory to Kiko’s death; we’ve also got her on conspiracy, and witholding information, and about twenty other
tangential things. But most of it is contigent on your testimony. Her fate is in your hands.”

This time, Slayton felt as though fate were playing with his head, stretching him out like soft rubber with the dead inevitability
of his own words. “Let’s go see her.”

The scene that followed had not helped the situation much. It was true that she had betrayed him, but he had used her just
as dispassionately to get what he wanted. Mostly what Slayton tried to do was read her eyes as she spoke to him, bitter now.
He tried to find truth in a pair of darkly hypnotic eyes, and instead found confusion and self-doubt. He should have been
more definite. But Mercy was in the boxlike room when he entered, and she was still there when he left.

“Lucius, this damned thing has got to come to a head in Washington before I can do anything more here,” he said, eyes on the
floor, supremely tired all at once.

“Yeah, I figured,” Lucius said, walking him down the corridor which led to the outside world and to his rented car. “Sounds
like you’ll be back with us almost before you leave.”

“Some suspicions of mine were verified. I have to go back and report, true, but I also have to do something else. I’ve been
thinking about it for a while, ever since the start of this case. It’s really simple.”

“Well?” Lucius prompted him.

“Basic department procedure,”. Slayton said, smiling weakly, pressing down a corner of his nose-bandage that had strayed up.
“I’ve got to go bust somebody in person.”

The guests applauded Senator Reed politely as he wrapped up his speech-making session. In his own inimitable fashion, the
burly, florid Reed had managed to introduce into the presentation—strictly as a matter of form—elaborate descriptions of several
weak areas of government. In his home state, one of Reed’s big election boards had been an almost fanatical antismut campaign;
indeed, latter-day Moral Majority types figured heavily in some of the lobbies with which Reed was involved.

Beneath the long dining table, Roxy rubbed her foot up and down Slayton’s calf. She seemed to have incredibly agile feet,
and managed to pull one of his socks down while eating fried zucchini and maintaining an expression of vague, bored disinterest
in the senator’s hyperbole. The conclusion of his presentation was no less than a relief.

Slayton had known all along that the speech would wrap up with that especially trying social convention, the handshake line.
In toto,
he had consumed a single glass of champagne during the entire evening. There would, as usual, be some kind of inquiry, and
he did not wish to have alcohol working against him.

Reed pumped Slayton’s hand exactly two times and released it. His skin had the temperature of a wax statue; he exuded vibrations
meant to intimidate and cow. Slayton shot them right back, putting on a winner’s-circle smile of shared confidence to which
the senator responded naturally. It was always important to impress upon the more common of his constituents his genteel,
yet down-home sincerity.

Still smiling, Slayton let the senator have it right in the kisser. His bruised knuckles stung with the punch, but a fireball
of satisfaction stoked itself within as Reed’s face seemed to squeeze together around his fist. He weaved stupidly, but did
not drop. Slayton jabbed his hands into the man’s armpits and spun him around. Losing his balance, Senator Reed threw his
hands out and braced himself against the wall. Cries of shock and indignation had already gone up.

“What you are about to see, folks,” Slayton said, pushing the senator into a straight-backed leaning stance against the wall,
“is a classic method used by law enforcement to subdue suspects.” He kicked Reed’s legs apart so his weight fell against his
arms. “It is referred to by oppressed minorities everywhere as an
up-against-the-wall.
It is quite useful when dealing with people who may not be in their right minds—perhaps drugged or intoxicated. It is also
a way to insure relative safety when dealing with a dangerous suspect.”

Quickly, and with no attempt at decorum, Slayton patted down the senator the way he would have shaken down a junkie in the
Bronx. The agents assigned as the senator’s bodyguards stood stupidly by, recognizing Slay-ton and deferring to him. Reed
himself had not uttered a sound since getting his lip split.

“As a hypocritical example of both trends, that is, drugs and danger to life, Franklin Reed stands—or leans—as a prime example
of a criminal of the highest caste. As you can see, this revelation has the senator somewhat dazed. Gentlemen?”

The agents Slayton had stationed outside and briefed on the barest details of the action rushed forward. Slayton took a fistful
of Reed’s coat in one hand and spun him back around.

“Take this man into custody. His scummy bootleg Star-shine syndicate has screwed up lives and killed people—and for the record,
he tried to have me killed, as well as others.” All this was in the form of a loud, general announcement not admitting of
interruption. Some of the people present would make useful witnesses. “The Filibuster King has just been busted.” He put his
bandaged face against Reed’s semiconscious one before he relinquished his grip. “You’re under arrest, you sonofabitch,” he
breathed.

Slayton saw the startled crowd of faces around him as Senator Reed was escorted away, sagging fast.

Most of the people were still jabbering to each other in a vain attempt to determine exactly what had happened. Reed’s wife
had recoiled and fallen solidly on her ample rump. After being helped up by a stranger, she burst into tears and went limp
against his shoulder. In the background, Roxy’s eyes were bright with mischief; she did everything but clap her hands together
at the sudden and controversial spectacle. Slayton relaxed as soon as Reed was gone and the people who had broken from the
line sensed he was no longer hostile.

Winship’s expression vacillated somewhere between outright horror and the resignation of a man on the gallows trapdoor. Cornelia
looked almost as if she were holding him up.

Slayton made for them. Cornelia was shaking her head in confusion. “Ben—?”

“Come on, Ham,” he said. “I’ve got an interesting videotape I want you to look at downstairs. It seems that our beloved Southern
Senator Reed is the head pimp behind the Starshine ring.”

Downstairs from the banquet rooms, there was a modestly provisioned recreational area that included a widescreen video-beam
projector. Slayton had prepared this area as well for his evening’s coup.

Winship sat in silence as he watched the videotape Slayton had assembled from the materials confiscated at the Marina apartments.
The names and places blubbered out by the terrified Brian Hill made too much sense.

“Remember Rutledge, the name we found in the ledger?” Slayton said, pacing before the screen. “Turns out that he’s the link
between the CIA and our men. The link between Rutledge and Senator Reed is—surprise!—Reed’s special executive assistant. Reed
finds out about the Treasury investigation and orders his flunky to take care of me at the same time we make a connection
between the flunky and Starshine. He turns around and orders the CIA to infiltrate his own apartment and catch me in the act—only
the CIA doesn’t know I’m there. They’ve got other orders to get away unscathed, which translates as shoot-to-kill. The innocence
of the flunky is preserved; why would he set up
his own place
as the stage for the hit?”

“Ben,” Winship said, with delicacy, “You have just punched out a United States senator…”

“Correction,” said Slayton. “A U.S. senator who also happens to be responsible for several deaths, for about two thousand
offenses against Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, for conspiracy, and for that all-time favorite of the tabloids, misappropriation
of federal funds. He used government money to seed the distillery operation in California. I spent last night checking. Hill
sang like a bird. I have a report on what happened to the money collected for his moral legislation campaign already on your
desk, sir.”

“Terrific character witnesses you’ve come up with,” Winship muttered. “Hookers, gang members, and porno kings.”

“But sir, we’re overlooking the central point, which to me is—that man tried to have me killed more than once. He’ll try to
fob off the rap on one of his many flunkies. But
he
did it;
he
pulled the strings. He’ll probably get a suspended sentence and make a fortune off a book. He tried to nail me once in Washington,
in the townhouse. He warned L.A. I was coming, courtesy of Rutledge’s hotline to the Treasury. All he had to do was order
the machine to bump me off. Here in Washington he could order the hit indirectly.
But he was the only one they would take orders from in Los Angeles.
I had the warehouse locations monitored. Lucius Bonnard has an interesting collection of recorded phone calls on line for
you, sir.”

Winship, sagging in the chair, straightened slightly. “But that doesn’t change the fact…”

“It’ll take a lot of sweetening, sir; I know that already. It would be best if I blew town for a while anyway. I have unfinished
business in Los Angles; loose ends that need Boy Scout knots.”

“I feel like a Mafia don,” said Winship. “I can’t believe I’m sanctioning this, that I’m not yelling. You know Reed will never
go to prison.”

“I knew that, sir.”

“
That
was the reason for that theatrical display?”

Slayton closed his eyes in affirmation.

“Extreme. Irregular.
Uncalled for,
Ben.”

“I realize that, sir. I’m prepared to turn in my resignation on your suggestion.”

Winship sank into granite silence, tapping his fingers together contemplatively. After about a minute, he rose and headed
toward the door. “I might as well get started soothing the ruffled feathers upstairs,” he said. “Good god.” He shook his head.

Ben Slayton rejoiced privately as soon as the door closed. He felt only a twinge of guilt that he had manipulated Winship
almost as ruthlessly as he had handled the grimmer details of the Starshine business.

A few beats after Winship took his leave, Roxy came boiling through the door, running across the empty rumpus room and leaping
into Slayton’s arms.

“Thrills, excitement!” she cried. “That was really
insane
up there. You’re a hero to some of the people who hated the speech, you know.”

“Hm.” Slayton caught her mechanically. “You were eavesdropping, I presume.”

“Couldn’t hear a syllable,” she said. “Door’s too thick. Anyhow, it’s obvious that that gruff old goat who just shambled out
of here is your boss, and you just got called on the carpet. How bad?” She seemed stimulated and happy, and Slayton let it
wash over him. It made him forget about the bandage on his nose and the unpleasant taste of keeping his sense of honor roughly
intact.

“Next Tuesday they chop off my head and display it on a pole outside the White House.”

“There,
see, it isn’t so bad.” She laughed. It was not a giggle, and Slayton appreciated that. “You still have time to make merry.
You even have time to make Roxy—if you hurry up about it.” She averted her head, surprised but pleased with her own boldness.
She was about one glass of bubbly over the six-foot mark.

“You mean you wish to incriminate yourself, too? Don’t you know I’ve been
exiled?”

“To Elba?” she said, deadpan.

“No.”

“Then it makes no difference, because you’re not leaving tonight. I can tell. Unless you’re busy. I can always go home—to
my
empty,
desolate, barren home—and cry. Unless you’re not busy. Are you busy?”

Slayton thrust his hands into his pockets. “Not now. It looks like my trick
did
work, after all.”

“Los
Angeles?
Really? Sounds dreary as hell,” Roxy said.

“I have to take care of three people,” he said, after considering it.

She kissed him briefly. Not with too much passion; it was more, a passing kiss of shared secrets. “You fell in love with somebody
there, I’ll bet,” she teased.

“Not exactly,” Slayton said. “I just did someone wrong by leaving her to fend for herself. She seemed tough and ballsy enough.
I read her wrong. We both turned out to be less than chrome-plated. She admitted it, and helped me. I didn’t admit it, and
ignored her. I think what I need to do is work up some humble; everything else will be okay after that.”

“Nothing else’ll do it? Bribes? Flattery?”

“It’d be misinterpreted. I don’t want to buy her off.”

“Sounds like you’re doing okay so far. What else?”

“I have to go to a funeral. A friend of mine is in a drawer in the L.A. County morgue.” He thought of the partners and friends
he had buried throughout the years of his trade, people who had been important to him, and decided no one would be riled at
his attachment of the label
friend
to someone like Kiko, even though they had been acquainted for something less than a day.