Free The Starshine Connection by Buck Sanders Page A

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