Inherent Vice (9 page)

Later, as Doc was getting in his car, Aunt Reet stuck her head out the
bungalow office window and hollered at him.

“
So you had to go talk to Mickey Wolfmann. Nice timing. What did I tell you, wise-ass? Was I right?
”

“
I forget,
”
Doc said.

THE COP WHO
’
D CALLED HOPE HARLINGEN WITH THE NEWS ABOUT
Coys overdose, Pat Dubonnet, was now top kahuna at the Gordita Beach station. Doc located behind his ear a bent Kool, lit up, and considered aspects of the situation. Pat and Bigfoot had come up at around the same time, both having begun their careers in the South Bay, practically on Doc
’
s own stretch of beach, back in the era of the
Surfer-Lowrider Wars. Pat had stayed, but Bigfoot, quickly picking up a
rep for stick-assisted pacification solid enough to look to the folks down
town like an obvious draft choice, had moved on. Doc had been around long enough now to watch a few of these hotshots come and go, and to note that they always left behind them some residue of history. He also
knew that Pat had more or less fucking hated Bigfoot for years.
“
Time for a visit,
”
he decided,
“
to Hippiephobia Central.
”
He drove past the Gordita Beach station house twice before he recognized it. The place had been radically transformed, courtesy of federal anti-drug money, from a pierside booking desk with a two-coil hot plate and a jar of instant coffee into a palatial cop
’s
paradise featuring locomotive-size espresso machines,
it’s
own mini-jail, a motor pool full of rolling weaponry that would otherwise be in Vietnam, and a kitchen
with a crew of pastry chefs working around the clock.

After threading his way among a c
rew of trainees chirping around
the place squirting mist at the dwarf
palms, Wandering Jews, and dief
fenbachias, Doc located Pat Dubonnet in his office, and reaching into his fringe shoulder bag, withdrew a foil-wrapped object about a foot long.
“
Here you go Pat, expressly for you.
”
Before he could blink, the detective had grabbed, unwrapped, and somehow ingested at least half of the lengthy wiener and bun within, which had also come with Everything On It.

“
Hits the spot. Amazed I have any appetite. Who let you in, by the way?
”

“
Posed as a drug snitch, fools
’em
every time, all
’em
bright new faces,
still naive I guess.
”

“
Not enough to stay here any longer than they have to.
”
Even though
Doc was watching carefully, somehow the rest of the hot dog had disap
peared.
“
Look at this miserable place. It
’s
The Endless Bummer. Everybody else will move on, but guess who, for his sins, will remain stuck out here forever in Gordita, nothin but penny-ante collars, kids under the pier dealing their moms
’
downers, when I should be in West L.A. or Hollywood Division, at least.
”

“
Center of the cop universe for sure,
”
Doc nodding sympathetically,
“
but we can
’
t all be Bigfoot Bjornsen can we—ups I mean who
’
d want to be him anyway?
”
hoping this wasn
’
t pushing things, given Pat
’
s mental health, frail on the best of days.

“
At this point,
”
Pat replied grimly, a quiver in his lower lip,
“
I
’
d settle
for a life swap even with him,
yes
trade what I
’
ve got for what
’
s behind the door where Carol is standing you might say, even if it turns out to be a zonk—in Bigfoot
’
s bracket how bad of a deal could that be?
”

“
Weird, Pat,
‘
cause what I hear is, is he
’
s scuffling these days. You
’
d know better than me, o
’
course.
”

Pat squinted.
“
You
’
re awfully inquisitive today, Sportello. I would have noticed sooner if I wasn
’
t so upset with career issues which are no
doubt beyond you. Is Bigfoot giving you problems again? Call the Inter
nal Affairs Hot Line, it
’
s toll-free—
800-bentcop.
”

“
Not that I
’
d ever file a complaint or
nothin, Lieutenant, understand,
but how
desperate,
man, blood out of a turnip, even the most wasted spare-change artist up on Hollywood Boulevard knows enough to pass
me
by anymore, but not that Bigfoot, oh no.
”

You could see a struggle going on here in Pat
’
s mind, between two major cop reflexes—envy of another cop
’
s career versus hatred of hip
pies. Envy won out.
“
He didn
’
t actually quote you a
sum
⁷
.
”

“
He listed some expenses,
”
Doc started improvising, and saw Pat
’
s
ears definitely change angle.
“
Personal, departmental. I told him I always
thought he was better connected than that. He got philosophical.
‘
People forget,
’
is how he put it.
‘
No matter what you may have done for them in
the past, you can never count on them when you need them.
’”

Pat shook his head.
“
And with the risks he
’
s taken ... A lesson to us
all. Some real ungrateful fuckers in
that
business, huh?
”
He had this Art
Fleming look on his face, like Doc was now supposed to guess which business, exactly.

Doc in turn made with the blank hippie stare that could mean any
thing, and which if held long enough was sure to unnerve any quadrilat
eral in uniform, till Pat shifted his eyes away, mumbling,
“
Ah. Yeah I get
you. Groovy.
‘
Course,
”
he added after some reflection,
“
he
’
s got all them
residuals.
”

Doc by now had very little idea what they might be talking about.
“
I
try to stay awake for those reruns,
”
he hazarded,
“
but somehow I always
crash before Bigfoot
’
s are on.
”

“
Well, Mr. News At Ten
’
s got himself another case of the century now, since Mickey Wolfmann
’
s gorilla got wasted
...
Let the others have Benedict Canyon and Sharon Tate and them, for the right chief
investigator this one could be a bottomless source of cash.
”

“
You mean
...
”

“
It
’
s bound to be a Movie for TV, ain
’
t it, whatever happens. Bigfoot
can end up with script and production credits, even play himself, the ass
hole, but ups, eleventh-commandment issues, ignore that I said that.
”

“
Not to mention if he gets Mickey back, he
’
s a big public hero.
”

“
Yeah, if. But what if he
’
s too close t
o this? Some point it begins to
fuck with your judgment, like doctors ain
’
t supposed to operate on fam
ily members?
”

“
Mickey and him are that tight, huh?
”

“
Ace buddies, according to legend. Hey. You think Bigfoot
’s
Jew
ish, too?
”

“
Swedish, I thought.
”

“
Could be both,
”
Pat dimly defensive.
“
There can be Swedish Jews.
”

“
I know there
’
s Swedish Fish.
”
Basically only trying to be helpful.

_FOUR

ON CERTAIN DAYS, DRIVING INTO SANTA MONICA WAS
LIKE
having hallucinations without going to all the trouble of acquiring and then taking a particular drug, although some days, for sure,
any
drug was preferable to driving into Santa Monica.

Today, after a deceptively sunny and uneventful spin up through the Hughes Company property—a kind of smorgasbord of potential U.S. combat zones, terrain specimens ranging from mountains and deserts to
swamp and jungle and so forth, all there, according to local paranoia, for
fine-tuning battle radar systems on—past Westchester and the Marina and into Venice, Doc reached the Santa Monica city line, where the latest mental exercise began. Suddenly he was on some planet where the wind can blow two directions at once, bringing in fog from the ocean and sand from the desert at the same time, obliging the unwary driver to shift down the minute he entered this alien atmosphere, with daylight
dimmed, visibility reduced to half a block, and all colors, including those
of traffic signals, shifted radically elsewhere in the spectrum.

Doc went automotively groping in this weirdness east on Olympic, trying not to flinch at what came popping up out of the gloom in the
way of city buses and pedestrians in altered states of consciousness. Faces
came sharpening into an intensity usually seen only at area racetracks, their trailing edges prolonged, some of t
hem, in quite drastic hues, and
often taking some time to clear the frame of the windshield. The car
radio didn
’
t help much, being able to pick up only KQAS, playing an old
Droolin Floyd Womack single Doc had always had conflicted feelings about, on the one hand trying not to take it personally just because he
’
d chased down a debtor or two, but then again finding himself going back over wrongs and regrets—

Th
’
repossess man comes

Bouncin through that

Win-dow! just

Layin
’
his hooks on ev
’
rything he can—

There goes my 19-inch!

My ride
’
s up on some winch!

Good-bye and cheeri-o

To my ol
’
stere-o!

Wohh,

The repossess man, he

Never will be

Happ
y,

Till he
’
s got ev
’
rything I need that

Gets me through
...

‘
Cause it
’
s all just out on loan,

Never really your own,

Look out!

That repossess man, he
’
s comin
’
after you!

Just out of Ondas Nudosas Community College, Doc, known back then as Larry, Sportello had found himself falling behind in his car payments. The agency that came after him, Gotcha! Searches and Settlements, decided to hire him on as a skip-tracer trainee and let him
work the debt off that way. By the time he felt comfortable enough to ask
why, he was in too deep.