Inherent Vice (35 page)

Docs nose started itching furiously.
“
Hey, I got one like that for
Christmas,
”
just dropping a random nightcrawler off the end of the pier,
“
well, except mine had these stuffed antlers on top, and sort of a big, red,
you know, like Rudolph-type thing on the nose, battery operated, so forth...
”

“
This one here
’
s standard issue,
”
Art couldn
’
t help swaggering a little,
“
part of the uniform, for when we
’
re out on maneuvers.
”

“
Was that you guys a couple weeks back, out at that wingding where
Mickey Wolfmann disappeared?
”

“
Sure was, we ended up chasing a gang of bikers all over Channel View Estates, meanest looking bunch you ever saw, but push come to shove, no more trouble than Negroes, really.
”

“
Yeah I keep seeing commercials for the place, with that detective fel
low, what
’
s his name..
.
”

“
Bjornsen—sure, old Bigfoot.
”

“
Think I even coordinated with him once or twice, downtown, on some trespass cases.
”

“
One of Americas true badasses,
”
said Art Tweedle.

“
No kidding? Struck me as more of a college professor than a field cop.

“
Exactly. That
’
s his cover, like Clark Kent, mild mannered. But you ought to see him out on the job. Whew! Move over, Pete Malloy. Back off, Steve McGarrett.
”

“
That dangerous, huh? Guess next time we
’
re in touch, I
’
ll have to watch my step.
”

which would be
almost immediately. After somehow driving under the influence back to the beach by way of surface streets, Doc went in the kitchen and was reaching for the coffee can when the phone kicked into strident alarm.

“
Idiots Unlimited, First to Go, Last to Know, and how in our pathet
ically fucked-up way can we improve your life tonight?
”

“I’m
in an evil mood myself,
”
Bigfoot informed him,
“
so I hope you
’
re
not expecting warmth, empathy, nothing like that?
”

Clark Kent
’
s ass. Having spent the trip home trying to stay in the cor
rect lane and not fall asleep at the wheel, Doc hadn
’
t got around yet to
considering what, according to Art Tweedle, was now a far more sinister
Bigfoot Bjornsen than he
’
d imagined. He also understood vaguely that right now might not be the best time to bring any of this up. Maintain, he advised himself, maintain
...

“
Howdy, Bigfoot.
”

“
I apologize if I
’
ve interrupted some exceptionally demanding hippie
task, like trying to remember where the glue is on the Zig-Zag paper, but
it seems we have yet another problem, not unconnected with this fatality of yours for introducing disaster into every life you touch, however glancingly.
”

“
Uh-oh.
”
Doc lit a Kool and started looking around for his stash.

“
I am all too aware of the memory lapses you people must constantly
struggle with, but would you happen to recall one Rudy Blatnoyd, D.D.S.?
”

“
One, sure—why, are there more?
”

“
Keen-witted as ever. Would you rather talk this over in person? We
can easily dispatch a chauffeur.
”

“
Sorry
...
you say Dr. Blatnoyd....
”

“
Has perpetrated his last root canal, I
’
m afraid. We found him next to a trampoline in Bel Air scarcely an hour ago with a fatal neck injury, perhaps even suffered while bouncing in the pitch darkness on that classic resource of backyard fun, who knows? But certain details do appear inconsistent. He was wearing a suit, necktie, and loafers, seldom considered appropriate for trampoline activities. We began to entertain the
possibility of foul play, though so far we have no witnesses, no motives,
no suspects. Apart from you, of course.
”

“
Not me.
”

“
Odd, because only the other night Dr. Blatnoyd was observed riding
in a vehicle full of dope-crazed hippie f
reaks including yourself, which
got stopped by officers in Beverly Hills on suspicion of being a POFO-
CAC or Potential Focus of Cult Activity.
”

“
Okay—the owner of that car? very respectable PV family by the
way? she offered me a ride? And the cops never even gave her a ticket?
And Dr. Blatnoyd was her friend, not mine?
”

“
I don
’
t wish to pry, Sportello, but where have you been tonight? We
’
ve been trying to call you all evening.
”

“
I was at the movies.
”

“
Of course you were, and where was that again?
”

“
Hermosa Theater.
”

“
And the film was
...
”

“
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
”
which in fact Doc had been to see
while the car was in the shop.
“
This chick I was with wanted to see the other half of the double feature, so we stuck around for that too, some English jailbait picture whose name I
’
ll think of in a minute
...
”

“
Ah,
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,
no doubt, a splendid film for
which Maggie Smith richly deserves her Oscar for Best Actress.
”

“
She was which one again, the blonde with the big tits, right?
”

“
Not a fan of the British cinema, I take it.
”

“
More of a Lee Van Cleef person, to be honest, I mean, that Clint Eastwood, he
’
s okay, but I always end up thinking of him as Rowdy Yates—
”

“
Yes well there
’
s an officer here with some evidence bags, and I
’
ll have to get back to the really amusing part of the evening. Would you mind dropping by Parker Center tomorrow, I
’
d so like to chat about this fool
’
s errand you were kind enough to
send me off on, this Coy Harlin
gen case?
”

“
Yeah, by the way, some friends of Coy
’
s came around yesterday
and trashed my associate
’
s apartment. So maybe it ain
’
t such a cold case
after all.
”

“
There
’
s cold and there
’
s cold,
”
said Bigfoot enigmatically, and hung up.

that night doc
dreamed he was a little kid again. He and another kid who resembles his brother Gilroy are sitting in the Arizona Palms in the middle of the afternoon with a woman who is not exactly Elmina,
though she is somebody
’
s mother. A waitress comes over with menus.

“
Where
’
s Shannon?
”
asks the woman who isn
’
t exactly Elmina.

“
She got murdered. I
’
m her replacement.
”

“
Guess it was only a matter of time. Who did it?
”

“
The husband, who else?
”

She brings their food in several trips, each time with some update on the slaying of her co-worker. The weapon, the suggested motives, the pretrial maneuvering. She interrupts banana-cream-pie-
à
-la-mode discussions with,
“
Known to happen, somebody kills somebody they
’
re fucking, even in love with, shrinks and counselors and lawyers can only do so much, you go behind the boulevards and you
’
re in the badlands again, where these people who always tell you how to behave have no jurisdiction anymore, and all the twenty-four-hour Southland belongs to the bad.
”

“
Mom,
”
little Larry wants to know,
“
when she comes back, will they let her husband out of jail?
”

“
When who comes back?
”

“
Shannon.
”

“
Didn
’
t you hear what the girl said? Shannon
’
s dead.
”

“
That
’
s only in stories. The real Shannon will come back.
”

“
Hell she will.
”

“
She will, Mom.
”

“
You really believe that stuff.
”

“
Well what do
you
think happens to you when you die?
”

“
You
’
re dead.
”

“
You don
’
t believe you can come back to life?
”

“
I don
’
t want to talk about it.
”

“
Well what does happen?
”

“
I don
’
t want to talk about it.
”

Gilroy is watching them with enormous
eyes
and playing with his
food, which annoys the Elmina woman, for whom eating is serious busi
ness.
“
Oh, now
you’re
playing. Don
’
t play, eat. And you,
”
she tells Doc,
“
someday you
’
re gonna have to conform.
”

“
What do you mean?
”

“
Be like everybody else.
”
Of course that
’
s what she means. And now
grown-up Doc feels his life surrounded by dead people who do and don
’
t
come back, or who never went, and meantime everybody else under
stands which is which, but there is something so clear and simple that
Doc is failing to see, will always manage not to grasp.

He woke up into this particular season of onshore fogs and the unnat
ural rumbling of jets taking off and landing at LAX all night long, as if
some hand at a control board had pushed the bass to an unexpected level,
and he found the Indian bedspread on the couch where he crashed run
ning red and orange dye from what could only be his tears. He walked
around well into the morning with a dim paisley pattern across half
his face.

_THIRTEEN

TIME WAS WHEN DOC USED TO ACTUALLY WORRY ABOUT
TURNING
into Bigfoot Bjornsen, ending up just one more diligent cop, going only
where the leads pointed him, opaque to the light which seemed to be find
ing everybody else walking around in this regional dream of enlighten
ment, denied the wide-screen revelations Bigfoot called
“
hippiphanies,
”
doomed instead to be accosted by freak after freak drawling,
“
Let me tell
you about my trip, man,
”
never to be up early enough for what might
one day turn out to be a false dawn. Which might have accounted for
why, up till last night, he
’
d always been willing to cut Bigfoot a certain amount of slack, not that he would necessarily want
that
to get around.
But now, according to Art Tweedle, there was Bigfoot
’s
probable connec
tion to the LAPD
’
s private army of vigilantes, maybe even (Doc couldn
’
t help wondering) to the raid at Channel View Estates. By the time he got to Parker Center, he was feeling like some allegorical statue in the park,
labeled
Community Disapproval.