The Starshine Connection

by Buck Sanders

  As far as Slayton was concerned, it took forever. Nineteen eternities, with an odd eon or two tossed in.

  Ortiz rasped a string of invectives at him. He could see the lips skinning back wolfishly as Ortiz talked and threatened—he had huge bicuspids—but Slayton could not hear a word.

  As his perception fought to swim away into blackness, Slayton realized that these theatrics probably meant he was not going to die in the warehouse. It was all muscle-flexing, otherwise he would be dead already. He hoped.

  It seemed to take a long time for his hearing to come back after Ortiz let him have it full in the face. Slayton felt his nose break, felt the fresh cascade of blood. But the first thing he heard was Mercy protesting, and Ortiz slapping her around to shut her up. They had a quick, jabbering argument in Spanish; he hit her again to stave off her protest, and returned to Slayton.

  “We figured out what to do with you, man,” he said in his leering voice. “You’re going on a trip. You should be real happy. You wanna suck up Mexican atmosphere, hey, have I got the guys for you!”

  More rough laughter.

  “But first I gotta go give this puta some real chora, you know what I mean? I gotta shoot her full of Mexican wisdom so she’ll see straight again. So I gotta leave you with my friends for a while—you understand.”

  The sick smile split his face again, and he grabbed Mercy by the waistband of her jeans and pulled her away into darkness. She was feather-light in his grip. Then the hyena pack closed in around Slayton, obscuring them from sight.

  The beating was unprofessional, but thorough. For some obscure reason, as Slayton felt his body cave in under the repeated blows, the image in his mind was of the split lip Ortiz had just given Mercy with his smack in the face. Two dots of blood had speckled her chin. Slayton focused on the two dots and nothing else, withdrawing into his own mind as his body was kicked and stomped.

  He saw flash-images of flailing hands, of laughing faces, of feet pumping into his sides, his head, his butt. They weren’t going to kill him, but they were going to come damn close.

  He kept his mind on the two dots, abstractions now. There was no pain after a minute or so. And then suddenly fiery pain crashed into him, and after a hovering moment or two, Ben Slayton passed completely out.

  The acrid odor steaming up from Slayton’s clothing told him he had been revived by someone urinating in his face. He made a mental note to thank the gentleman at his first opportunity.

  Reality fluttered in and out of focus, not yet ready to be captured and held by Slayton’s mind. He shifted his concentration away from the two red dots—where in hell had he gotten that?—to the steel girders in the ceiling of the warehouse, far above.

  “Está felón,” Ortiz muttered, looking at him. “You’re a real tough guy now, aren’t you?” His surprisingly correct English grammar seemed to register with Slayton—that was what made his speech so strange; its precision unnatural for a barrio spic, to say the least. “You look like something the street department wouldn’t bother to flush into the sewer, amigo.” He made a tiny hiss, of disgust. “Did they cut off your palomita? Do garbadinas even have one? No?” This last was more performance for the boys, strictly disposable taunting. Slayton ignored it.

  “Dácalo,” he said. A flunky cholo hurried up with a leather case. Ortiz snapped it open and extracted a hypodermic needle and a small ampule of amber fluid. “We figure you need to try the agua fria, to get some firsthand experience,” he said. “But I know a guy like you won’t cooperate with a civilized approach, a nice social drink with your güisas. So after you have this”—he held the hypo so Slayton could see it—“you’ll be more agreeable.”

  Two cholos pounced on Slayton’s forearm and bicep, rendering everything motionless while Ortiz stuck the needle carelessly into the crook of his arm, pushing the fluid into Slayton’s muscle tissue, and thence to his blood vessels. Up close, the stuff looked like thin honey—or urine. Slayton tried to grind his teeth, set his jaw—but the throbbing in his face defeated his efforts.

  For almost a minute nothing happened. Then the pain in his jaw ebbed away, with the slow, yet perceptible feeling of a tide flowing out. Ortiz’s shining black hair was next to his broken nose, and he heard the cholo’s soft, menacing voice, like the voice of God, coming seemingly from all directions.

  “Amigo, you are so goddam thirsty you can’t bear it. You want something to drink. You want something to drink more than anything else, more than a woman, more than life. If you don’t get something to drink, you’ll die and nobody will ever know your name…”

  This went on for a while, until it seemed to be a persistent background counterpoint to Slayton’s inner thoughts. He tried to force himself not to think about drinking, and felt his throat constrict dryly. It was no good; it was like telling him not to think about a rhinoceros. His throat began to ache for liquid.

  Ortiz said, “Now he’s gotta meditate for a minute.” What the hell had happened to Mercy?

  When Ortiz at last handed Slayton the Starshine bottle, he almost dropped it in his disorientation and his greed to drink. All the straight lines of the building had bowed hypnotically sideways, and any physical movement caused instant plunging vertigo. Slayton managed, with a silly grin on his face, to empty the decanter into himself.

  “Two or three more oughta do it,” Ortiz said, and everyone laughed again. Slayton laughed, too. Ortiz was really funny! A brotherly kind of guy; Slayton thought that possibly they could be buddies. Maybe Ortiz would let Slayton join the gang!

  The real world, or what was left of it, faded away. Time was meaningless as physical reference. The world strobed past Slayton like a fast and indifferent rerun performance of a coming-attractions trailer, all static images with no continuity or sense. He watched it dumbly, passively. It was pretty and flashy, it was fun to sit and watch, like television, and it didn’t require you to think. That was his problem, Slayton thought. No time for the pretty things. No time to appreciate Art.

  They pushed him around some more, principally for laughs. He was aware of that, but there was no pain associated with the memory. Tactile sensation was as stable as cotton candy. He saw the car he was loaded into. He was aware of telling the cholos how to tie the knots in his bindings so he could not get away from them.

  This goddam Starshine was really a trip!

  He was a bit angered that they put a blindfold on him, but cooled off when he found that he could still see things. He had the power to see through the cloth! That was something he had not counted on—an advantage, a palpable testament to his superiority, because he was the Good Guy.

  They refused his request to go back to the warehouse for his white hat.

  All of this was very important. It had something to do with the mouthful of dirt Slayton kept trying to spit out. It was floor dirt. He had taken a bite out of the tamped brown earth that formed the floor of the Mexican cell into which he had been tossed…

  Things began to connect, not unlike a chain that is chopped up into serviceable lengths, each composed of several metal links. The parts held together, but it was still not a complete chain equalling total consciousness. The first thing that resolved itself into clear focus was the pain.

  Slayton doubled up in the cell, alone now. Fuentes had kicked him in the ribs, possibly breaking one or several, but he could still breathe freely. The dry bood on his clothing reeked; in fact, Slayton stank richly from the abuses of the past two days. He was still wearing the same clothes in which he had infiltrated the Starshine warehouse with Mercy.

  The particulars of the cell wafted from infinity focus into clear-cut objects and textures. That was it! He was bringing himself back up to the surface!

  Lying on the floor, with stinging and slow movements, Slayton tested his arms and legs—flexing the fingers, bending the elbow, wriggling the toes. He attempted to do a sit-up, rose several inches from the floor, and plunked back, raising a small cloud of dust. Not yet. He had no idea of how long it would be befor
e the guard returned, to stuff more drugs into him, soften him up some more, or kill him. Slayton had to be ready for the next time he came back, had to force himself to use his remaining time usefully. Tentatively, he tried waking his body up with isometrics, remaining virtually still on the floor. Each muscle screamed individually as Slayton forced the pain to come, using the sensation as verification that he was still alive, and applying it toward regaining a hold on reality, so that he might save his life.

  Over and over, he told himself, You’ll die if you fail. He’d die. Where, he did not even know. They’d investigate, but they wouldn’t find out anything useful for months, and by that time the Starshine people would have shifted gears neatly, leaving no trace of themselves. Slayton could not fail.

  He worked methodically. In several moments he was able to sit up under his own power. If the guard, Fuentes, returned now, Slayton’s attack would be crude but effective. There was a fifty-percent chance he would be able to cold-cock the fat guard, Fuentes, by using his own weight against him. Slayton’s chances for success increased with elapsed time. He was like a guitar player, hurrying to get in tune for a concert. The show had to go on.

  Slayton stood up. Wobbly, black and purple with bruises, but okay. The pain in his face from the broken nose had receded to a dull borderline ache, pulsing steadily, but manageable. If he waited too much longer he knew he’d lapse, vomit, pass out again. That could not be allowed to happen.

  There was the brief slam of a wooden door, and Slayton heard the guards coming to collect him.

  14

  Cholla was huddled back in his ratty office chair trying to make sense out of a copy of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine that was a year or so shy of its fortieth birthday. It had come to the rural police outpost when a border barbershop had closed its doors. It had been there for the occasional American customer.

  Over the edge of the pulp magazine, Cholla saw Fuentes. He had clumped into the station and returned to the back cell after relieving himself of the water-weight of four more bottles of Dos Equis against an ocatilla plant outside. The station, when in use, had no official bathroom—just the area behind the parking canopy for the jeep. Usually the officers bunked themselves in town with the less picky whores.

  Today Fuentes was dragging it out. He had not gotten his paws on a gabacho in some time. He intended to make this one last a little longer before blowing his brains out with the long-barreled Colt he packed. Then the gringo would be dumped out in the middle of the Mesa Locote, the “uncaring plateau,” at the waterless end of a two-hour trail drive. His body, conveniently relieved of all personals, with strict attention paid to anything that might have a negotiable value, would be without identity, fit in the merciless heat only to be came asada for the buzzards. After that came the part Cholla favored, with his inestimable good taste: the trip north, the lavish graft, the quality whores. All things considered, the most distasteful part of his sideline was working with a sweating hog like Fuentes. But they maintained the smiling good friendship that only partners in murder must actively nurture.

  The monotony of the buzzing flies was broken by the commotion in the cell at the back. Fuentes loved to make his diversion last, and Cholla sensed that he needed no help. Cholla’s lunch was starting its own revolution in his stomach, and he wanted to avoid agitating the mess if at all possible. He also knew that Fuentes preferred to take his sadistic pleasures alone for more than one reason—sometimes it was the only sexual relief he got.

  In the back, the banging and thrashing stopped, and Cholla nodded to himself. Madre de Dios, but Fuentes was a basural

  But Fuentes was not conforming to the fantasy with which Cholla pleased his own prejudices at the moment, since he called out for Cholla’s assistance—nothing urgent; he only called out once, and casually. Cholla, a stickler for form—this being a reactionary trait, with an eye toward Fuentes’s sloppiness—unholstered his pistol nevertheless, as he approached the second cell. It was the cell at the end of the abbreviated “hallway,” more properly a cave passage. The door was open.

  Warily—it seemed too quiet in there—Cholla entered.

  Slayton caught him gun-first, vising Cholla’s extended arm and whipping him into the cell with a snapping action that tore the pistol from his grasp and propelled him against the adobe wall. Cholla caught the impact on his shoulder blades with a grunt, rebounding off the wall, charging Slayton in the narrow space.

  The long-barreled Colt came up in Slayton’s other hand and spit a hot wad of lead into Cholla’s right shoulder. The blast, in the tiny cell, smacked the eardrums with vacuum force. In a second the room was exuding the acrid stench of burning gunpowder. The jacketed slug lifted Cholla off the floor and piled him into the corner next to the prostrate Fuentes. Slayton had opened Fuentes’s head up along the eyebrow ridge, taking advantage of the man’s obesity to drive him into the rough edge of the hewn bunk that was the cell’s only furniture. The sharp bones of his brow split the fatty tissue and burst scalp veins; the result was redly messy. Fuentes was not seriously hurt, but his entire face and chest were drenched in blood. Cholla’s eyes opened to wide circles at the sight, before the instant shock from the bullet wound put him under. His head sagged, and he was out cold.

  Slayton did not regret roping the compadres together and locking them in the cell; they’d both live. Reflex and instinct were his principal motivators now, and he had little interest in fairness or legality. His consciousness had shifted over to the jungle-cat aspect that often serves men in deep shock or extreme exhaustion: stress so severe that it breaches physical limitations and taps a basic, core energy for the tasks at hand.

  Slayton stripped away Cholla’s boots, since they had taken his own shoes before chucking him into the cell. He found the jeep keys in Fuentes’s shirt pocket, and a scatter of small-coin cash on both. He had left his ID and personals in the hotel. The only thing on him in the warehouse had been cash, which of course was nowhere to be found.

  There was no telephone in the station. Slayton took both pistols and tossed them onto the suicide seat of the jeep. He loaded an ice chest full of beer he found in the office, and, after checking around quickly, found an ancient bottle of aspirin and a pot of cold coffee. The coffee was nauseating, but the taste assured him it was practically pure caffeine. He washed down a fistful of the chalky tablets with it, and threw the pot aside.

  Minutes later he was barreling down the solitary trail in the jeep, looking for signs of life in the desert. He had absolutely no idea of where he was, other than somewhere in Mexico. Frustration plied his mind, and knife-keen pain prodded his arms and legs as he labored through the motions of simple driving. Every rut and chuckhole in the crude road announced itself to his nerve endings. He grimaced, teeth throbbing, and drove on.

  It was high noon. The sun fried his eyeballs.

  There were almost a hundred well-weathered signs clinging to and leaning against the interconnected series of shacks. The CURIOS and CERVEZA signs seemed to stitch the buildings together. The gritty plumes of dust rearing up from under Slayton’s jeep wheels were the only signs of life for miles, and Slayton himself knew little except that he was on a northbound road. That much he could deduce from the slow passage of the sun toward its grave in the west. The radio in the jeep was deader than the thick, hot air. Even if Slayton had not been injured, it would have been painful to breathe.

  The ramshackle structure had front windows, but the only clean one was obscured by a massive, rusting COCA-COLA disk. The metal of the various signs clicked in the heat. Slayton dismounted the jeep, and took a cursory look around. The place was not nearly shabby enough to be abandoned or unoccupied. He would have called out if he could have.

  He became aware of a baleful eye, glaring at him over the pitted rim of the Coca-Cola sign. It vanished, and a moment later a nearly unhinged screen door was kicked out of the way by the proprietor of the strange place.

  “Buenos dias,” the man said, simply enough. He rolled hi
s baleful gaze up and down Slayton in a single sweep, and then said, “I speak English, señor. You have been hunting in the desert?”

  He was a withered and short man, baked to an almost fleshless nutty brown by the sun. He was skeletal, but his eyes blazed with life and intelligence. A pale blue chambray workshirt at least ten years old fluttered from his frame, and he moved along with an odd gait that kept him immobile from the waist up, knees bending and feet stepping mechanically, rather in the fashion of a marionette whose puppeteer is not yet adept. Slayton let the piercing gaze transfix him, knowing that, to the little man at least, he must look like a lost soul up from hell for a quick beer.

  As the man asked about hunting, his eyes fell to the pistols still resting on the front seat of the jeep.

  “You don’t have to worry about the guns, compadre,” Slayton said. It emitted from his throat like a croak. He had destroyed a beer or two en route, but knew the alcohol would only make him thirstier in the desert—and worse, it would act as a mild sedative, dulling him. It might blunt the pain, but the pain was keeping him awake, and, so far, alive.

  “I don’t worry about the guns,” the man answered. His voice was a kind of reedy nasal buzz with overpowering Spanish inflections. “You have blood all over your shirt-front,” he noted dispassionately.

  “Somebody tried to kill me,” Slayton said, equally detached. “I have to get to a telephone. I have to call the United States.”

  “You are driving the police jeep.”

  “It was the police who tried to kill me, señor,” Slayton said, wondering if a jump toward the pistols on the seat would be worth it.