Inherent Vice (7 page)

“
Good thing you
’
re not recruiting for the NCAA, Bigfoot, you
’
d be
in some deep shit.
”

at the office next day,
Doc was listening to the stereo with his
head between the speakers and almost missed the diffident ring of the
Princess phone he
’
d found at a swap meet in Culver City. It was Tariq
Khalil.

“
I didn
’
t do it!
”

“
It
’
s okay.
”

“
But I didn
’
t—
”

“
Nobody said you did, fact they thought for a while it was me. Man,
I
’
m really sorry about Glen.
”

Tariq was quiet for so long that Doc thought he
’
d hung up.
“
I will be,
too,
”
he said finally,
“
when I get a minute to think about it. Right now
I
’
m conveying my ass out of the area. If Glen was a target, then so am I, I
would say in spades, but you folks do get offended so easy.
”

“
Is there someplace I can—
”

“
Better not be in no contact. This is not some bunch of fools like the LAPD, this is some heavy-ass motherfuckers. And if you don
’
t mind a
piece of free advice—
”

“
Yeah, care in motion, as Sidney Omarr always sez in the paper. Well,
you too.
”

“
Hasta luego,
white man.
”

Doc rolled a number and was just about to light up when the phone
rang again. This time it was Bigfoot.
“
So we send some Police Academy
hotshot over to the last known address of Shasta Fay Hepworth, just a
routine visit, and guess what.
”

Ah, fuck no. Not this.

“
Oh,
I
’
m
sorry, am I upsetting you? Relax, all we know at this point
is that she
’
s disappeared too, yes just like her boyfriend Mickey. Isn
’
t that
odd? Do you think there could be a connection? Like maybe they ran off
together?
”

“
Bigfoot, can we at least try to be professional here? So I don
’
t have to start callin you names, like, I don
’
t know, mean-spirited little shit, somethin like that?
”

“
You
’
re right—it
’
s the federals I
’
m really annoyed with, and I
’
m taking it out on you.
”

“
You
’
re apologizing, Bigfoot?
”

“
Ever known me to?
”

“
Uhhm. ..
”

“
If anything does occur to you about where they—so sorry,
she
— might
’
ve gone, you will share that, won
’
t you?
”

There was an ancient superstition at the beach, something like the surfer belief that burning your board will bring awesome waves, and it went like this—take a Zig-Zag paper and write on it your dearest wish, and then use it to roll a joint of the best dope you can find, and smoke it all up, and your wish would be granted. Attention and concentration were also said to be important, but most of the dopers Doc knew tended to ignore that part.

The wish was simple, just that Shasta Fay be safe. The dope was some
Hawaiian product Doc had been saving, although at the moment he couldn
’
t remember for what. He lit up. About the time he was ready to transfer the roach to a roach clip, the phone rang again, and he had one
of those brief lapses where you forget how to pick up the receiver.

“
Hello?
”
said a young woman
’
s voice after a while.

“
Oh. Did I forget to say that first? Sorry. This isn
’
t
...
no, of course it wouldn
’
t be.
”

“
I got your number from Ensenada Slim, at that head shop in Gordita Beach? It
’
s about my husband. He used to be close to a friend of yours, Shasta Fay Hepworth?
”

All right.
“
And you
’
re
...
”

“
Hope Harlingen. I was wondering how your caseload
’
s looking at the moment.
”

“
My
...
oh.
”
Professional term.
“
Sure, where are you?
”

It turned out to be an address in o
uter Torrance, between Walteria
and the airfield, a split-level with a pepper tree by the driveway and a eucalyptus out back and a distant view of thousands of small Japanese sedans, overflowed from the main lot on Terminal Island, obsessively arranged on vast expanses of blacktop and destined for auto agencies across the desert Southwest. TVs and stereos spoke from up and down the streets. The trees of the neighborhood sifted the air green. Small airplanes went purring overhead. In the kitchen hung a creeping fig in a plastic pot, vegetable stock simmered on the stove, hummingbirds out on the patio poised vibrating in the air with their beaks up inside the bougainvillea and honeysuckle blossoms.

Doc, who had a chronic problem telling one California blonde from another, found an almost 100-percent classic specimen—hair, tan, ath
letic grace, everything but the world-famous insincere smile, owing to a
set of store-bought choppers which, though technically
“
false,
”
invited those she now and then did smile at to consider what real and unamus-ing history mightVe put them there.

Noticing Docs stare,
“
Heroin,
”
she pretended to explain.
“
Sucks the
calcium out of your system like a vampire, use it any length of time and your teeth go all to hell. Flower child to wasted derelict, zap, like magic.
And that
’
s the good part. Keep it up long enough ... Well.
”

She got up and started pacing. She was not a weeper, but she was a pacer, which Doc appreciated, it kept the information coming, there was a beat to it. A few months back, according to Hope, her husband, Coy Harlingen, had OD
’
d on heroin. As well as he could with a doper
’s
memory, Doc recalled the name, and even some story in the papers. Coy
had played with the Boards, a surf band who
’
d been together since the early sixties, now considered pioneers of electric surf music and more
recently working in a subgenre they liked to call
“
surfadelic,
”
which fea
tured dissonant guitar tunings, peculiar modalities such as post-Dick Dale
hijaz kar,
incomprehensibly screamed references to the sport, and the radical sound effects surf music has always been known for, vocal noises as well as feedback from guitars and wind instruments.
Rolling
Stone
commented,
“
The Boards
’
new album will make Jimi Hendrix
want to
listen to surf music again.
”

Coy
’
s own contribution to what the Boards
’
producers had modestly termed their
“
Makaha of Sound
”
had been to hum through the reed of
a tenor or sometimes alto sax a harmony part alongside whatever melody
he was playing, as if the instrument was some giant kazoo, this then
being enhanced by Barcus-Berry pickups and amplifiers. His influences, according to rock critics who
’
d noticed, included Earl Bostic, Stan Getz,
and legendary New Orleans studio tenor Lee Allen.
“
Inside the surf-sax
category,
”
Hope shrugged,
“
Coy passed for a towering figure, because he
actually improvised once in a while, instead of the way second and even
third choruses usually get repeated note for note?
”

Doc nodded uncomfortably.
“
Don
’
t get me wrong, I love surf music, I
’
m from
it’s
native land, I still have all these old beat-up singles, the Chantays, the Trashmen, the Halibuts, but you
’
re right, some of the worst blues work ever recorded will be showing up on the karmic rap sheets of surf-sax players.
”

“
It was never his work that I was in love with.
”
She said it so matter-of-factly that Doc risked a quick scan for eyeball shine, but this one was not about to start in with the faucets of widowhood, or not yet. Meantime she was running through some history.
“
Coy and I should
’
ve met cute, with cuteness everywhere back then and all of it up for sale, but actually we met squalid, down at Oscar
’
s in San Ysidro—
”

“
Oh
boy.
”
Doc once or twice had been in—and through the mercy of God, out of—the notorious Oscar
’
s, right across the border from Tijuana, where the toilets were seething round the clock with junkies new and old who
’
d just scored in Mexico, put the product inside rubber balloons and swallowed them, then crossed back into the U.S. to vomit them back up again.

“
I had just gone running into this one toilet stall without checking first, had my finger already down my th
roat, and there Coy sat, gringo
digestion, about to take a gigantic shit. We both let go at about the same
time, barf and shit all over the place, me with my face in his lap and to complicate things of course he had this hardon.

“
Well.

“
Even before we got to San Diego, we were shooting up together in the back of somebody
’
s van, and less than two weeks later, on the inter
esting theory that two can score as cheaply as one, we got married, next thing we knew here came Amethyst, and pretty soon this is what we had
her looking like.
”

She handed Doc a couple of Polaroid baby pictures. He was startled at the baby
’
s appearance, swollen, red-faced, vacant. Having no idea of what kind of shape she was in at present, he felt his skin begin to ache with anxiety.

“
Everybody we knew helpfully pointed out how the heroin was com
ing through in my breast milk, but who could afford to buy formula?
My parents saw us locked into a dismal slavery, but Coy and I, all we saw
was the freedom—from that endless middle-class cycle of choices that
are no choices at all—a world of hassle reduced to the one simple issue of
scoring. And how was shooting up any different from the old folks and their dinner-hour cocktails anyway? we figured.

“
But actually when did it ever get that dramatic? Heroin in Cali
fornia? my gracious. Stepped on so often it should have
‘
Welcome
’
writ
ten across every bag. There we were happy and stupid as any drunk,
giggling in and out bedroom windows, cruising straightworld neighbor
hoods picking out strange houses at random, asking to use the bathroom, going in and shooting up.
‘
Course, now that
’
s impossible to do,
Charlie Manson and the gang have fucked that up for everybody. End of
a certain kind of innocence, that thing about straightworld people that kept you from hating them totally, that real desire sometimes to help.
No more of that, I guess. One more West Coast tradition down the toilet
along with three percent product anymore.
”

“
And so
...
this thing that happened to your husband
...
”

“
It wasn
’
t California smack, for sure. Coy wouldn
’
t
’
ve made that
mistake, using the same amount without checking. Somebody had
to’ve
switched bags on him deliberately, knowing it would kill him.
”

“
Who was the dealer?
”

“
El Drano, up in Venice. Actually Leonard, but everybody uses the anagram because he does have that sort of caustic personality, plus his effect on the finances and emotions of those close to him. Coy had known him for years. He swore up and down it was local heroin, noth
ing out of the ordinary, but what does a dealer care? Overdoses are good
for business, suddenly herds of junkies are showing up at the door, con
vinced if it killed somebody then it must be
really good shit,
and all they
have to do themselves is be careful and not shoot quite so much.
”

Doc became aware of a baby, or technically toddler, risen quietly from her nap, holding on to a doorjamb and watching them with a big expectant grin in which you could see some teeth already in.

“
Hey,
”
Doc said,
“
you
’
re that Amethyst, ain
’
t you?
”

“
Yep,
”
replied Amethyst, as if about to add,
“
what
’
s it to you?
”

Bright-eyed and ready to rock
‘
n
’
roll, she bore little resemblance to the junkie baby in the Polaroids. Whatever dismal fate had been waiting to jump her must
’
ve had a short attention span and turned aside and
gone after somebody else.
“
Nice to see you,
”
Doc said.
“
Really nice.
”

“
Really nice,
”
she said.
“
Mom? Want juice.
”

“
You know where it is, Juicegirl.
”
Amethyst nodded vigorously and headed out to the fridge.
“
Ask you something, Doc?
”