Inherent Vice (36 page)

“
Hi, Bigfoot! been out smoking any niggers lately?
”
No
...
no, he
was pretty sure what he
’
d said out loud was,
“
Anything new on that Bel
Air case?
”

“
Don
’
t ask. Well, actually do ask, maybe I need to vent.
”
The vibes around Robbery-Homicide Division this morning were
as cordial as they ever got, which was hardly at all. Maybe it was Doc,
maybe the nature of the work here, but he could have sworn that today
Bigfoot
’
s colleagues were going out of their way to avoid them both.

“
Hope you don
’
t mind if we go take a Code 7 someplace?
”
Bigfoot reaching under the table and dragging out a Ralph
’
s shopping bag with
what looked like several kilos of paperwork in it, getting up, and heading
out the door, motioning Doc to follow. They went downstairs and out to a Japanese greasy spoon around the corner where the Swedish pancakes
with lingonberries couldn
’
t be beat, and which arrived in fact no more than a minute and a half after Bigfoot had put his head in the door.

“
Ethnic as always, Bigfoot.
”

“
I
’
d share these with you, but then you
’
d be addicted and it would be
something else on my conscience.
”
Bigfoot started in scarfing.

Those pancakes sure looked good. Maybe Doc could spoil Bigfoot
’
s appetite or something. He found himself purring maliciously.
“
Aren
’
t
you ever bitter that you missed being up there on Cielo Drive? Stompin
around that famous crime scene with the rest of the high-living heat, wipin out them fingerprints, leavin your own, so forth?
”

Having grabbed a second fork from Doc
’
s setup and eating now with
both hands,
“
Minor concerns, Sportello, that
’
s only ego and regret. Every
body
’
s got that—well, everybody who works for a living. But do you want
to know the truth?
”

“
Uhnnh
...
no?
”

“
Here it is anyway. The truth is
...
right now everybody
’
s really, fucking, scared.
”

“
Who—you people? All
’em
burrito hounds up in Homicide? Scared of what? Charlie Manson?
”

“
Odd, yes, here in the capital of eternal youth, endless summer and all, that fear should be running the town again as in days of old, like the Hollywood blacklist you don
’
t remember and the Watts rioting you do—it spreads, like blood in a swimming pool, till it occupies all the volume of the day. And then maybe some playful soul shows up with a bucketful of piranhas, dumps them in the pool, and right away they can taste the blood. They swim around looking for what
’
s bleeding, but
they don
’
t find anything, all of them getting more and more crazy, till the craziness reaches a point. Which is when they begin to feed on each other.
”

Doc considered this for a bit.
“
What
’
s in
’em
lingonberries, Bigfoot?
”

“
It
’
s like,
”
Bigfoot had continued,
“
there
’
s this evil subgod who rules over Southern California? who off and on will wake from his slumber and allow the dark forces that are always lying there just out of the sunlight to come forth?
”

“
Wow, and
...
and you
’
ve
...
seen him? This evil subgod,
’
maybe he ... he talks to you?
”

“
Yes and he looks just like a
hippie
pothead
freak
!
Something, huh?
”

Wondering what this was about, Doc, trying to be helpful, said,
“
Well, what I
’
ve been noticing since Charlie Manson got popped is a lot less eye contact from the straight world. You folks all used to be like a crowd at the zoo—
’
Oh, look, the male one is carrying the baby and the female one is paying for the groceries,
’
sorta thing, but now it
’
s like,
‘
Pretend they
’
re not even there, cause maybe they
’
ll mass murder our ass.
’”

“
It
’
s all turned to sick fascination,
”
opined Bigfoot,
“
and meantime the whole field of homicide
’
s being stood on
it’s
ear—bye-bye Black Dahlia, rest in peace Tom Ince, yes we
’
ve seen the last of those good old-time L.A. murder mysteries I
’
m afraid. We
’
ve found the gateway to hell, and it
’
s asking far too much of your L.A. civilian not to want to go crowding on through it, horny and giggling as always, looking for that
latest thrill. Lots of overtime for me and the boys I guess, but it brings us
all that much closer to the end of the world.
”

Bigfoot ran a deep scan of the place from the toilets in back out to the desert light of the street and lifted the Ralph
’
s bag onto the table.
“
This Coy Harlingen matter. I didn
’
t want to discuss it up in the office.
”
He began to bring out ungainly wads of papers of different sizes, colors,
and states of deterioration.
“
I pulled the tub on this expecting what we technically call zip shit. Imagine my surprise at finding how many of my colleagues, at how many far-flung outposts of law
enforcement, not
to mention levels of power, have had their lunchhooks all over it. Coy
Harlingen not only used multiple aka
’
s, he also had a number of offices
running him, typically at the same time. Among which—I hope I don
’
t shock or offend—have been unavoidably those elements who wouldn
’
t
mind if Coy really did end up under a granite slab with his final alias
carved thereon.
”

“
Coy
’
s overdose, or whatever it was—there must be a lot of monthly
IPRs on that by now. Any chance of having a look?
”

“
Except that Brother Noguchi
’
s shop could never quite bring them
selves to call it a homicide, so nobody was ever required to file any prog
ress reports, intra-, extra-, non-, whatever. On the face of it, just one
more OD, one less junkie, case cleared.
”

Once Doc would have said,
“
Well, that
’
s that, can I go now?
”
But
with this new fascist model Bigfoot, the one he
’
d recently found out maybe he couldn
’
t trust after all, the old style of needling somehow
wasn
’
t as much fun anymore.
“
You mean it would be a routine case,
except for all this paperwork,
”
is what he said, carefully,
“
which even just
eyeballing it does seem a little out of proportion. Like the one pink li
’
l DOA
slip would
’ve
been enough.
”

“
Ah, you noticed. It
’
s certainly the kind of documentary attention dead folks don
’
t see too much of. You would almost think Coy Harlin
gen was really alive someplace and kicking. Wouldn
’
t you. Resurrected.
”

“
So what have you found out?
”

“
Technically, Sportello, I am
not even aware this case exists.
Cool with
you? Groovy? Why do you think we
’
re down here and not upstairs?
”

“
Some Internal Affairs soap opera, I figure, which you
’
re
desperate
to
keep me away from. Now what could that be?
”

“
Fair enough. What I want to keep you away from is vast, Spor
tello, vast. On the other hand, if there is something trivial I can let you in on from time to time, why get too paranoid about it?
”
He rooted
around in the Ralph
’
s bag and found a long speckled box nearly full of
three-by-five index cards.
“
Why, what have we here? Oh, but you know
what these are.
”

“
Field Interrogation Reports. Souvenirs of everybody you guys ever
stopped and hassled. And this sure looks like a lot of them for one junkie
saxophone player.
”

“
Why don
’
t you just flip through these quickly, see if there
’
s anything
that looks familiar.
”

“
Evelyn Wood, don
’
t fail me now.
”
Doc began to run through the cards, trying to keep alert for one of Bigfoot
’
s rude surprises. He had met a few close-up magicians and knew about the practice of
“
forcing
”
a card on a spectator. He saw no reason for Bigfoot to be above this kind
of trickery.

And what do you know. What was this? Doc had nearly half a second to decide if the card he
’
d caught sight of was worth keeping from Bigfoot, and then he remembered that Bigfoot already knew which one it was.
“
Here,
”
he said pointing.
“
I know I
’
ve seen that name someplace.
”

“
Puck Beaverton,
”
Bigfoot nodded, taking it out of the box.
“
Excellent choice. One of Mickey Wolfmann
’
s jailbird praetorians. Let
’
s see now.
”
He pretended to read off the card.
“
Sheriffs people happen to run into him at the Venice home of the very dealer who sold Coy Harlingen the smack that killed him. Or didn
’
t kill him, as the case may be.
”
He pushed the FIR card across the Formica, and Doc scanned it doubtfully.
“
Subject, unemployed, claims to be a friend of Leonard Jermain Loose-meat, aka El Drano.
‘
I just came over to play a couple games of pool.
’
Subject seemed unusually nervous in Beaverton
’
s company. That
’
s it? What was Puck doing at Coy
’
s dealer
’
s place? Do you think.
”

Bigfoot shrugged.
“
Maybe there to buy?
”

“
Any record of him using?
”

“
Somebody
’
d have to look.
”
Which must have sounded jive-ass even to Bigfoot, because he added,
“
Puck
’
s file could be in storage by now, far, far away, someplace like Fontana or beyond. Unless ...
”
A hustler
’
s pause, as if a thought had just struck him.