Inherent Vice (42 page)

“
You sound a little bitter, Mr. Fazzo, if you don
’
t mind my saying.
”

“
I do mind, but I
’
m pissed off about everything these days. I try to find
out what
’
s going on, everybody clams up. You tell me. All I know is, is it was all over by
‘
65, and it
’
ll never be like that again. The half-dollar coin,
right? sucker used to be ninety percent silver, in
‘
65 they reduced that
to forty percent, and now this year no more silver at all. Copper, nickel, what next, aluminum foil, see what I
’
m saying?
Looks
like a half-dollar,
but it
’
s really only pretending to be one. Just like those video slots. It
’
s
what they
’
ve got planned for this whole town, a big Disneyland imitation
of itself. Wholesome family fun, kiddies in the casinos, Go Fish with a
table limit often cents, Pat Boone for a headliner, nonunion actors playing funny mafiosi, driving funny old-fashioned cars, making believe rub each other out, blam, blam, ha, ha, ha. Las
-
fuck
in-
Vegas
-
land.
”

“
So maybe you can appreciate the old-school appeal of a long-shot bet on Mickey.
”

Fabian smiled tightly and not for long.
“
Spend enough time here, you get these vibes. Look. What if Mickey
’
s not as missing as we think?
”

“
That case I
’
m contributing to your renovation fund. You can name a dealer
’
s shoe after me, put a li
’
l plaque down on the side.
”

Fabian seemed to be waiting for Doc to say something else, but finally, with a palms-up shrug he arose and escorted Doc along a corridor and around a few corners.
“
Right through there ought to get you where you
’
re going.
”
For a brief brainpulse, Doc was reminded of the acid trip he
’
d been put on by Vehi and Sortilege, trying to find his way through a labyrinth that was slowly sinking into the ocean. Here it was all dry desert and scuffed beaverboard, but Doc had the same sense of a rising flood, a need at all costs not to panic. He heard music someplace ahead, not the smoothly arranged sound of a showroom band, more like the ragged start-and-stop of musicians on their own time. He found what once might have been an intimate little lounge, thick with weed and tobacco smoke. There in a tiny amber spot which was sharing a few scrounged-up watts with a pedal steel while the rest of the band played acoustic, stood Lark, her bearing lively despite all the time on her feet through the shift she
’
d just come off of, singing a country swing number that went,

Full moon in Pisces,

Dang
’
rous dreams ahead,

If you
’
re out there cruisin,

If you
’
re home in bed,

Keep a six-pack icy,

Make sure your hat
’
s on right,

Full moon in Pisces,

And it
’
s a Saturday night.
..

There goes my ex-best fella,

Got on his Frankenstein shoes,

There
’
s my girlfriend Ella,
She
’
s got the werewolf blues,

W
hen she hits
’em
high C
’
s,

She
’
s gettin ready to bite,

(Look out!)

Full moon in Pisces,

Another Saturday night.

That hometown

Vampire gang
’
s all

Flashin their fangs, it can

Do funny thangs, to your brain—and so

What if it feels,

A little head over heels,

No big deal, you
’
re not real-

-ly insane—

It
’
s just some local folks trippin,

Never lasts that long,

Good-time minutes go slippin,

Next thing you know it
’
s dawn—

Forget the creeps and crises,

Crank up
‘
at neon light—

Full moon in Pisces,

Hell,

it
’
s Saturday night.

She couldn
’
t see him from where she was, but Doc waved anyway, clapped and whistled like everybody else, and then kept on with his
search for an exit through the back regions of the underlit casino. About
the time it occurred to him that Fabian Fazzo might
’
ve been trying to steer him someplace else, he came around a corner a little too fast and ran into big trouble in brown shoes.

“Oh, shit.” Yes it was Special Agents Borderline and Flatweed again, along with a platoon of other suit-wearers, escorting a figure Doc recognized only too late—probably because he didn’t want to believe it. And because nobody was supposed to see any of this in the first place. The blurred glimpse Doc got was of Mickey in a white suit, wearing much the same look he had in his portrait back at his house in the L.A. hills—that game try at appearing visionary—passing right to left, borne onward, stately, tranquilized, as if being ferried between worlds, or at least bound for a bulletproof car you’d never get to see in through the windows of. Hard to say if they had him in custody or if they were conducting him on what real-estate folks like to call a walk-through.

Doc had stepped back into the shadows, but not fast enough. Agent
Flatweed had caught sight of him, and paused. “Little business here, you
fellows go ahead, I won’t be long.” While the rest of the detail moved away down the corridor, the federal approached Doc.

“One, at that Mexican place over on West Bonneville, that could
have been a coincidence,” he observed pleasantly, pretending to count on his fingers. “All kinds of people come to Las Vegas, don’t they. Two, you
show up in this particular casino, and a man begins to wonder. But three,
here in a part of the Kismet Lounge even most locals don’t know about, well say now, that puts you somewhat out on the probability curve, and sure merits a closer look.”

“How close is that, you’re already upside my face here.”

“I’d say you’re the one who’s
too close”
With his head he indicated
Mickey, now almost vanished behind him. “You recognized that subject,
didn’t you.”

“Elvis, wasn’t it?”

“You’re making things awkward for us, Mr. Sportello. This curiosity about the Michael Wolfmann matter. Most inappropriate.”

“Mickey? no longer even a active case for me, man, fact, I never even
made out a ticket on it, cause nobody was payin me.”

“Yet you pursue him all the way to Las Vegas.”

“
I’m
here looking into totally something else. Happened to drop by the Kismet, that’s about it.”

The federal gave him a long look. “Then you won’t mind my sharing
a thought. It’s you hippies. You’re making everybody crazy. We’d always
assumed that Michael’s conscience would never be a problem. After all
his years of never appearing to have one. Suddenly he decides to
change
his life
and give away millions to an assortment of degenerates—Negroes,
longhairs, drifters. Do you know what he said? We have it on tape.
^‘
I feel
as if I’ve awakened from a dream of a crime for which I can never atone,
an act I can never go back and choose not to commit. I can’t believe I spent my whole life making people pay for shelter, when it ought to’ve been free. It’s just so obvious.
’”

“You memorized all that?”

“Another advantage of a marijuana-free life. You might want to try it.”

“Uh
...
try what, again?”

Agent Borderline came over, an inquisitive look on his wide red face.
“Ah, Sportello we meet again and a pleasure as always.”

“I can see how busy you fellows are,” said Doc, “so rather than keep
you, I think I’ll just,” breaking into Casey Kasem’s Saturday-morning Shaggy voice, “h’like, fuckin,
runV
which he proceeded to do, though
with no clear idea of where he was heading. What were they going to do,
start shooting? yes well actually
..
.

At length, nearly out of breath, he spotted a pair of toilets labeled
george
and
georgette,
and betting on FBI taboos, ducked into the ladies’, where he found Lark in front of one of the mirrors, retouching her makeup.

“Damn! another one them sexually confused hippies!”

“Waitin for the feds to go mess with somebody else, darlin. Caught
your number, by the way. That Dolly Parton better start gettin worried.”

“Well, some of Roy Acuff’s people were in last week and gave it a lis
ten, so you keep your fingers crossed for me.”

“Ordinarily I’d say let’s grab us a quick beer, but—”

Federal hollering in the near distance.

She made a face. “Bad upbringin is my own theory. I’ll show you the back way out, and best you avail yourself now.”

Doc made his way among smells of newly sawed wood, fresh paint,
and joint compound till he reached a fire door and shoved it open, where
upon a recorded voice kicked in at high volume advising him to freeze and wait for the arrival of duly authorized professionals trained to thor
oughly dismantle his ass. He stepped out onto a sparsely lit loading dock of time-corroded concrete, down which he could see dark shapes already
coming at him on the run.

There was the sound of an engine. Doc looked back over his shoulder, and here rounding the corner at great expenditure of tire tread came Titos limousine, with the sunroof open and the top half of Adolfo waving some kind of submachine gun in the air. Doc’s pursuers came to a halt and began to consult about this.

The limo braked next to Doc. “Hop on down!” yelled Tito. Adolfo ducked back inside long enough for Doc to step over onto the roof and slide in through it, then resumed position as Tito tached up and dropped into low, leaving a fragrant set of tracks a block long and a screech that could be heard halfway to Boulder Dam. “Where to, bro?” inquired Tito.

“You’re not gonna believe who I saw,” Doc said.

“Adolfo thinks he saw Dean Martin.”

Adolfo slid back down inside the car. “Not exactly.”

“Well...” Tito said, “so like... was it Dean Martin, or wasn’t it Dean Martin?”

“See, that’s just it—it was Dean Martin, and it wasn’t Dean Martin.”

“
And’? Don’t you mean ‘but’?”

Doc must have drifted away. When they let him off back at the motel,
Trillium wasn’t there, though her things were. He looked around for a note and couldn’t find one.

He rolled a joint, lit up, and settled in in front of
All-Nite Freaky
Features,
where
Godzilligans Island,
a movie for TV in which the Japanese
monster meets the sitcom castaways, was just about to begin. Over the
opening credits, Godzilla, out in search of some R&R after his latest
urban-demolition binge, stumbles—literally—upon the Island, causing
immediate anxiety among the survivors of the
Minnow’s
historic cruise.

“We just have to stay alive,” as Mary Ann explains it to Ginger,
“till the Japanese Self-Defense Forces get on the case, which is usually
quicker than you can say ‘kamikaze.’”

“Ka-mi—” Ginger begins, but is drowned out by a skyful of
jet-fighter aircraft, which begin to fire rockets at Godzilla, who as usual
is no more than mildly inconvenienced. “See?” nods Mary Ann, as the
laugh track also explodes in mirth. Unnoticed in the uproar, the Professor has arrived with a peculiar-looking piece of anti-Godzilla weaponry
he has been working on, featuring various analog control panels, para
bolic antennas, and giant helical glass coils pulsing with an unearthly
purple glow, but before he can get to demonstrate it, Gilligan, mistaking
the device for the Skipper, falls out of a tree on top of it, narrowly avoid
ing irradiation and impalement. “I just got it calibrated!” cries the Prof
in dismay.

“Maybe
it’s
still in warranty?” wonders Gilligan.

We get a crane shot from what is supposed to be Godzillas point
of view. He is looking down at the behavior on the Island, endearingly
perplexed as always, scratching his head in a way meant to remind us of
Stan Laurel. Fade to commercial.

At some point, Doc must have lost track of the movie, awakening
next morning to Henry Kissinger on the
Today
show going, “Veil, den,
’ve
schould chust
bombp
dem, schouldn’t ve?”