The Starshine Connection (3 page)

“Right. I’m just surprised I haven’t been asked to sign a petition to legalize it yet.”

“The traffic will continue. We need to deal with this on a higher level than just slapping the hands of the abusers who happen
to be running the country—god knows, they’re about the only ones who can afford the stuff.”

“Starshine is probably on a lot of expense accounts as cognac or something similar,” Slayton said. Its use was not widespread
enough even to be statistically significant. It might have been officially ignored or swept under the rug altogether, had
not the death factor been introduced.

“I need you to infiltrate the familiars of that stuff,” Win-ship said. “We need to know where the pipeline for it originates,
and cut it off at the source. The past few weeks are all the justification we need. If we wipe it out, thrill-seekers will
simply find something else. They may even find something more lethal than Starshine. But if
we
don’t act, we’re not doing our jobs.”

“Are you asking me to attend a lot of those Georgetown parties on purpose?” Slayton said, suddenly amused.

“Whatever it takes. You have more stamina for that sort of social interaction than I have.”

Hockey-pucking through dense party after dense party, hoping to ferret out a lead to Starshine? Slayton groaned inwardly,
knowing it was inevitable. The inexorable phoniness and stupidity that abounded at these so-called “elite” gatherings grated
on his sanity. Had Winship at that moment asked him to unseat some banana republic dictator barehanded and alone, he might
have gladly accepted that mission instead.

But of course, Ben Slayton was in no real position to refuse any mission.

“Tell me,” Winship said, “just why
is
this stuff called Starshine?”

“It’s supposed to originate in California, sir, specifically, Hollywood. Where it is said by sages that one may lie upon the
sand and look at the stars. Or vice-versa.”

Winship snorted. “Of course.”

“The congressman—I have to know this, sir—wasn’t he the one who was so heavily behind the repeal of conditional fines for
possession of marijuana a few months back?”

Winship nodded. That was when Slayton broke out laughing. He
did
relish the poetic justice of it all, even though the mission was, as Winship had asserted, serious business.

“I don’t think the primary connections will be hard to seek out,” Slayton said, changing tack as Winship puffed capaciously
on his new pipe. “You realize, of course, I’ll probably have to go to California.”

“You already have the full cooperation of whatever law enforcement resources you’ll need there.”

“Any sort of time stricture on this, sir?”

“No. We just have to get to the root of this problem and wipe it out. Bear in mind that the interests that control Starshine
represent not only illicit narcotics traffic, but a great deal of money as well. They will be primarily interested in keeping
their operation safe. Considering the power brokers involved in this so far—we’re not merely talking government here, but
the usual industry and business captains as well as their military counterparts—there could be some very well-insulated initiators.
That’s mainly what we’re worried about.”

“Could be department heads manipulating the whole thing,” Slayton said, aware that one of Ham Winship’s conference-table equals
might just as well be the head dealer for the Starshine traffic. He lifted the dossier from the desk. “I’ll take this and
begin immediately.” He turned toward the door.

“One other thing,” Winship said to his back.

“I know, sir: ‘Don’t get killed and be home by eight.’”

“No. We both know that it’s your job to get killed if you have to, though I wouldn’t advise it. I was just thinking that there
is a deadline on this assignment alter all.”

“Yes?”

“Crack this thing before someone
else
gets killed.”

Slayton left his superior behind amidst his own cloud of smoke.

“… of course, Roeg’s visual esthetic is the reason he has been denied the Hollywood-type accolades that come so easily to
his inferiors—it has nothing to do with his choice of material, or handling of it. He began as a cinematographer, not a director.
By not staying in his caste, he offended the sensibilities that dole out meaningless prizes like Academy Awards. When was
the last time anyone mentioned Roeg for
commercial
merit on the basis of his directoral work?”

Slayton was capable of reciting the speech in his sleep. He had tried to mix, but as usual wound up dominating the group of
five or six younger Washington socialites. The males were eventually reduced to nodding importantly in counterpoint to Slayton’s
lucid dissections of the states of the various arts. The women, clutching their arms, gradually became more and more starry-eyed
as Slayton spoke. The worst he had to deal with was an impulsive conversational attack by one impudent lad who, when nailed
down, thought baroque and rococo were the same styles.

It was incredibly dull and time-wasting for Slayton. The progress he was making had nothing to do with the talk that issued
so mechanically from his mouth and held the Washington coeds and senator’s daughters so hypnotically.

In the past week, attending two and three of these affairs a day, Slayton had gauged the ebb and flow of the social interactions
themselves. He timed himself to the very pulse of the parties; in two days he knew which ones to avoid. Normally he would
have shunned them all, but given the criterion of Starshine, he calculated which affairs to attend, and applied himself with
a suicidal kind of verve toward being fascinating. It was like bagging a dead snake with a shotgun.

The aggregate phoniness was the worst thing for a sensibility like Slayton’s. The older stalwarts, with whom it might have
been interesting to discuss politics, were generally only there to keep up social register appearances (“no comment”), or
cruising to get laid. The kids were beautiful, but totally callow. Somewhere between, Slayton was certain he would discover
a tie-line to Starshine.

“I was almost in a fight, once,” a falsely knowledgeable, man in an ostentatious crushed-velvet suit said, interrupting Slayton’s
light story. Somehow the conversation had drifted to personal combat; Slayton had been keeping it light. It would not do to
introduce the subject of deathblows and viscera-splattering assassination techniques to this wide-eyed gaggle of innocents.
But traditionally, braggart muscles were flexed in this sort of exchange—Slayton could feel it coming. The man rattled on,
having stolen the attention of most of the group.

“… and I felt cornered, I mean, what could I do, right? Well, he tried to grab me—I had Sylvia behind me, naturally—and I
threw my arms up like
this!”
He jerked his forearms stiffly upward in a poor imitation of a karate stance he had most likely seen on television. “He hesitated,
for just a split second, mind you, and I did
this
—” He shoved his clenched fist straight out ahead of him, like an off-target Nazi salute. “—and
bash!
He went down without a sound! I never thought that that practice would pay off, you know, you
never
ever do, but…”

The girl with him, who was obviously not Sylvia, at any rate, cocked her head as if to say
what practice?
He shushed her before she could protest.

Slayton did not have enough alcohol in him to rationalize showing the boy up for the fool he was, living in his little fantasy
world. At the same time, nothing required him to endure such ego-balming fluff. It was clear that few believed the young man,
and no one would challenge him. Slayton decided to stir up the soup a bit.

“Pardon me, young man,” Slayton began with a puzzled expression, “but did you say that you struck out in this fashion?” Slayton
imitated the boy’s crude blow. There was a total absence of leverage or any muscular angle that would lend the strike true
stopping power—it was a clumsy angle designed strictly for show.

“Yes,” the boy said, defiantly.

“And you claim to have stopped a mugger with such a blow?”

“Yes.”

Slayton shook his head. “That’s quite astounding, for a man with no training.”

The boy preened visibly. “Yes, well, you know, I was thinking of protecting Sylvia, after all.” He folded his arms, smiling,
struggling to appear ten years older than he really was.

Slayton’s pleasant smile was aimed directly at him as he continued. “No, no, 1 meant that it’s astounding because if you held
that sort of blow straight out and waved it around, you couldn’t even stop a taxicab with it.”

Suddenly it looked as though, like Dorian Gray, the boy’s face
did
age ten years, all at once. His eyes flared. He had been contradicted before his peers. Most of the group laughed. Slayton
was still watching him, his expression unchanged, as though the others did not exist.

Finally, stepping forward, he said, “Since I’ve now made you look like a fool in front of your friends, let me show you something.
Don’t worry, none of them have ever been in a real fight either. Now—” He stepped within an arm’s length of the boy, who involuntarily
recoiled, stepping back and nearly tripping over his own feet.

“I propose that I am just such an attacker. Now, I want you to punch me in the face. Straight-arm, no mickey-mouse. And,”
he said, turning to address the group as a whole, “I promise neither to hurt you, to deflect the blow… or to move out of the
way.”

Somebody in the rear rank of the group went
oh wow.
Anticipation coiled around them all. Slayton realized what the young man thought he was being offered—a chance to show up
this fast-talking asshole in front of everyone.

Slayton was the only person in the room who was totally relaxed.

“You mean… just hit you in the face?” the boy said, with a serpent’s grin.

“That’s right,” Slayton said. “Any time you’re ready.” He stuck his chin comically out, and the women laughed.

But his eyes never left the boy’s. Slayton could see the punch he had in mind coming from weeks and miles away.

The boy threw what he thought was a solid right cross, holding his fist too tight and attempting, at the last second, to put
his entire body into the punch. Slayton did not move, flinch, or blink.

Like a striking snake, Slayton’s right arm flew up and caught the boy’s arm by the wrist, stopping the punch dead in the air
two inches from his nose. Reflexively, some of the observers had already turned their heads away, and one of the girls had
cried out at the splat of flesh that never came.

The boy’s eyes widened even further. He tried to pull his fist back, and Slayton held it totally immobile. It was like being
caught in the grip of a statue.

“
Voila!”
said Slayton, releasing the boy’s arm.

The puppy he had whipped massaged his wrist, gritting his teeth and reddening under the realization that he now looked, to
his buddies, like the biggest jerk in the world.

Sometimes, though, Slayton thought, with humiliation comes maturity. The boy had apparently gained some small portion of the
latter, since he withdrew from the group, retreating as expected—but without a parting epithet or cheap shot to use as a last-minute
grab at saving face.

Like a carny emcee, Slayton held his hands up, open-palmed. “And now, children, Uncle Ben is headed for the bar. Please feel
free to do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Slayton milled his way wordlessly toward the wet bar. The gathering was just beginning to cook at one in the morning. He cadged
for himself a raw scotch, sipped tentatively, and ordered another. He dumped the contents of the second glass into the first
before the barman’s eyes. The man shrugged.

“Tell me, Uncle Ben,” came a voice from behind him. “Is flexing your muscles the only way you have to impress little girls?”

Without turning, Slayton knew it was the girl who had, up until his display, been Sylvia’s replacement for the night. She
had shucked her knight-errant and come gunning for him. Cleaved away from the homogeneous group, she was much more interesting.

“Little girls, yes. That’s about all they go for—it comes from watching too much television, you know. Now women, that’s a
different matter altogether. Women usually have brains. Little girls are victims of their own raging adrenals, wouldn’t you
say?”

She pursed her lips in mock thought. “Well, which would you say I qualify as?”

Slayton stepped back theatrically and looked once up, once down, like inspecting a used car. “Not sure,” he said. “Could be
the consciousness of a girl inside that voluptuous shell. Tell me, do you think the excesses of. Renaissance sculptors were
mere compensations for latent homosexuality? What is the absolute artistic worth of what Eno called ‘ambient music’ versus
mechnical tonalities? Is either true music at all? How about politics? Why do you think the government has been holding back
on hydro-genization to meet our fuel needs now that it’s cost-effective? Is the timing of the essence of feminine orgasm really
only 3.5 seconds? You’re laughing and trying to cover up your mouth—does this indicate that you’re actually attempting to
pick me up?” He took two steps back and leaned on the wet bar. “Correction: pick me up at a
bar?”

She was totally caught up in it, having a hell of a time. Slayton sipped and watched her as she laughed herself out. Then
he said, “What happened to your boyfriend Jake?”

“Jake?” she said, wiping her eyes.

“Right, Jake LaMotta.”

“Huh?” Slayton watched it blow right past her.

“Never mind. Poor joke.”

“Rodney was a drag anyway,” she said. “To hell with him. Look, my name’s Roxanne. Roxy.”

“Very stylish,” said Slayton, eyes drifting past her to the far walls of the room. “And what drugs are you into?”

“Come on,” she said, her smile fading. Her wide and perfect mouth somehow did not look normal without a smile on it. “Not
all of us are as stupid as you seem to think we are. And not all of us are collegiate dunderheads, either.”