Inherent Vice (6 page)

After no more than an hour of this sort of thing, to Doc
’
s surprise, Sauncho actually showed up at the door and started right in with Bigfoot.

“
Lieutenant, you know you don
’
t have any case here, so if
you’re
going
to charge him, you better. Otherwise—
”

“
Sauncho,
”
Doc hollered,
“
will you dummy up, remember who this
is, how sensitive he gets— Bigfoot, don
’
t mind him, he watches too many
courtroom dramas—
”

“
As a matter of fact,
”
Detective Bjornsen with the fixed and sinister
stare he used to express geniality,
“
we probably
could take
this all the way
to trial, but with our luck the jury pool
’
d be ninety-nine percent hippie
freaks, plus some longhair sympathizer of a DDA who
’
d go and fuck the
case all up anyway.
”

“
Sure, unless you could get the venue changed,
”
mused Sauncho,
“
like, Orange County might be—
”

“
Saunch, which one of us are you working for, again?
”

“
I wouldn
’
t call it work, Doc, clients pay me for work.
”

“
Were only detaining him for his own good,
”
Bigfoot explained.
“
He
’
s closely connected with a high-profile homicide and possible kidnapping, and who
’
s to say he himself
won’t
be next? Maybe this
’
ll
turn
out to be one of those perpetrators who
specially like
to murder hippies, though if Sportello
’s
on their list, I might have a conflict of interest.
”

“
Aww, Bigfoot, you don
’
t mean that. ... If I got knocked off? think
of all your time and trouble finding somebody else to hassle.
”

“
What trouble? I go out the door, get in the unit, head up any block, before I know it, I
’
m driving through some giant damn
herd
of you hippie freaks, each more roustable than the last.
”

“
This is embarrassing,
”
said Sauncho.
“
Maybe you two should find somewhere besides an interrogation cubicle.
”

The local news came on and everybody went out to the squad room to
watch. There on the screen was Channel View Estates—a forlorn-looking
view of the miniplaza, occupied by an armored division
’s
worth of cop vehicles parked every which way with their lights all going, and cops sitting on fenders drinking coffee, and, in close-up, Bigfoot Bjornsen, hair Aqua-Netted against the Santa Anas, explaining,
“
.
..
apparently a party of civilians, on some training exercise in anti-guerrilla warfare. They may have assumed that this construction site, not yet being open for occupancy, was deserted enough to provide a realistic setting for what we must assume was only a harmless patriotic scenario.
”
The Japanese-American cutie with the microphone turned fullface to the
camera and continued,
“
Tragically, however, live ammunition somehow
found
it’s
way into these war games, and tonight one ex-prison inmate lies slain while prominent construction mogul Michael Wolfmann has mysteriously vanished. Police have detained a number of suspects for questioning.
”

Break for commercial.
“
Wait a minute,
”
said Detective Bjornsen, as
if to himself.
“
This has just given me an idea. Sportello, I believe I shall kick you after all.
”
Doc flinched, but then remembered this was also cop
slang for
“
release.
”
Bigfoot
’
s thinking on
this being that, if he cut Doc
loose, it might attract the attention of the real perpetrators. Plus giving him an excuse to keep tailing Doc in case there was something Doc wasn
’
t telling him.

“
Come along, Sportello, let
’
s take a ride.
”

“
I
’
m gonna watch the tube here for a while,
”
Sauncho said.
“
Remem
ber, Doc, this was like fifteen billable minutes.
”

“
Thanks, Saunch. Put it on my tab?
”

Bigfoot checked out a semi-obvious Plymouth with little E-for-Exempt
symbols on the plates, and they went blasting through the remnants of rush hour up to the Hollywood Freeway and presently over the Cahuenga Pass and down into the Valley.

“
What
’
s this?
”
Doc said after a while.

“
As a courtesy I
’
m taking you out to the impound garage to get your
vehicle. We
’
ve been over it with the best tools available to forensic science, and except for enough cannabis debris to keep an average family of four stoned for a year, you
’
re clean. No blood or impact evidence we can
use. Congratulations.
”

Doc
’
s general policy was to try to be groovy about most everything,
but when it was his ride in question, California reflexes kicked in.
“
Con
gratulate this, Bigfoot.
”
I’ve
upset you.

“
Nobody calls my car a
murderer,
man?
”

“
I
’
m sorry, your car is some kind of.
..
what, pacifist vegetarian? When bugs come crashing fatally into
it’s
windshield, it... it feels remorse? Look, we found it almost on top of Charlock
’
s body, idling, and tried not to jump to any obvious conclusions. Maybe it intended to give the victim mouth-to-mouth.
”

“
I thought he was shot.
”

“
Whatever, be happy your car
’
s in the clear, Benzidine doesn
’
t lie.
”

“
Well yeah
...
does make me kind of jumpy though, how about your

“
Not the one with the
r
in it
”
—Bigfoot fell for this every time—
“oh,
but here
’
s Canoga Park coming up in a few exits, let me just show you something for a minute.
”

Off the exit ramp, Bigfoot hooked a U-turn without signaling, went back under the freeway and began to climb up into the hills, presently pulling in at a secluded spot that had Shot While Trying to Escape written all over it. Doc began to get nervous, but what Bigfoot had on his mind, it seemed, was job recruitment.

“
Nobody can predict a year or two hence, but right now Nixon has the combination to the safe and he
’
s throwing fistfuls of greenbacks at anything that even looks like local law enforcement. Federal funding beyond the highest number you can think of, which for most hippies is not much further than the number of ounces in a kilo.
”

“
Thirty-five
...
point
...
something, everybody knows that— Wait.
You, you mean like,
Mod Squad,
Bigfoot? rat on everybody I ever met,
how far back do we go and you still don
’
t know me any better
’
n at?
”

“
You
’
d be surprised how many in your own hippie freak community
have found our Special Employee disbursements useful. Toward the end
of the month in particular.
”

Doc took a close look at Bigfoot. Jive-ass sideburns, stupid mustache, haircut from a barber college out somewhere on a desolate boulevard far from any current definition of hipness. Right out of the
background of some
Adam-12
episode, a show which Bigfoot had in fact
moonlighted on once or twice. In theory Doc knew that if, for some reason he couldn
’
t imagine right away, he wanted to see any other Bigfoot,
off camera, off duty—even married with kids for all Doc knew, he
’
d have to look in through and past all that depressing detail.
“
You married, Bigfoot?
”

“
Sorry, you
’
re not my type.
”
He held up his left hand to display a wedding ring.
“
Know what this is, or don
’
t they exist on Planet Hippie.
”

“
A-and, you have like, kids?
”

“
I hope this isn
’
t some kind of veiled hippie threat.
”

“
Only that. .. wow, Bigfoot! isn
’
t it
strange,
here we both are with
this
mysterious power
to ruin each other
’
s day, and we don
’
t even know
anything
about
each other?
”

“
Really profound, Sportello. Aimless doper
’
s driveling to be sure, and yet, why, you have just defined the very essence of law enforcement! Well
done! I always knew you had potential. So! how about it?
”

“
Nothing personal, but yours is the last wallet I
’
d ever want money
out of.
”

“
Hey! wake up, it only looks like Happy and Dopey and them skip
ping around the Magic Kingdom here, what it really is is what we call.
..
‘
Reality
’
?
”

Well, Doc didn
’
t have the beard, but he was wearing some tire-tread huaraches from south of the border that could pass for biblical, and he
began to wonder now how many other innocent brothers and sisters the
satanic Detective Bjornsen might
’
ve led to this high place, his own scenic overlook here, and swept his arm out across the light-stunned city, and offered them everything in it that money could buy.
“
Don
’
t tell me
you can
’
t use it. I am aware of the Freak Brothers
’
dictum that dope
will get you through times of no money better than vice versa, and we could certainly offer compensation in a more, how to put it, inhalable
form.
”

“
You mean ...
”

“
Sportello. Try to drag your consciousness out of that old-time
hard-boiled dick era, this is the Glass House wave of the future we
’
re
in now. All those downtown evidence rooms got filled up ages ago,
now about once every month Property Section has to rent more ware
house space out in deep unincorporated county, bricks and bricks of shit
stacked to the roof and spilling out in the parking lot, Acapulco Gold!
Panama Red! Michoacan Icepack! numberless kilos of righteous weed, name your figure, just for trivial information we already have anyway.
And what you don
’
t smoke—improbable as that seems—you could
always sell.
”