Inherent Vice (38 page)

“
Trillium Fortnight,
”
she introduced herself.
“
They said you could help me.
”

“
They did, eh,
”
suavely waving half a pack of Kools at her, which she
declined.
“
And how many of them were there?
”

“
Oh, I
’
m sorry. Dawnette and Boris. They said—
”

“
Whoa.
”
Dawnette and Boris.
“
How long ago was this?
”

“
About a week.
”

“
You
...
wouldn
’
t know where they are now.
”

She shook her head, it seemed to Doc sadly.
“
Nobody does.
”

“
But you talked to them?
”

“
On the phone. They thought somebody was listening in, so they didn
’
t stay on long.
”

“
Did it sound like a local call? You know, like sometimes—
”

“
It sounded like they were out on the road, a pay phone on a frontage
road off some interstate.
”

“
You could hear that?
”

She shrugged.
“
It was the way the voices combined.
”
Doc must have
been giving her a peculiar look.
“
Not Voices
’
voices. Like parts in a musi
cal piece?
”

“
Serenade for Peterbilt Rig and VW Bus,
”
Doc guessed.

“
Actually, Kenworth and Econoline
van, plus a street hemi, a Har
ley, and some miscellaneous clunkers.
”
This sensitivity of ear, she went
on to explain, had proved useful both
in her day job, teaching music
theory at UCLA, and also for moonlighting as a woodwind specialist in early-music ensemble gigs.
“
Anything from a double-quint pommer down to a sopranino shawm, I
’
m your person.
”

Doc had a hardon, and his nose was running. That old cootie food had found him again. Trillium, on the other hand, had dropped into a peculiar silence which, if he
’
d been in his right mind, he would have recognized as the some-other-guy blues. He found a piece of paper from a yellow legal pad with a long shopping list of junk-food items on it in pencil, and rolled it into the typewriter, just to keep busy.

“
So
...
how did Boris and Dawnette think I could help you?
”

“
Someone I know has disappeared, and I need ... I
’
d like to find out what happened to him.
”

Doc typed
lucky fellow.
“
We could start with name and last known address.
”

“
His name is Puck
...
”

“
Puck.
”
Uh, huh.

“
Puck Beaverton
...
last address was in West Hollywood, but I
’
m not sure of the street
...
”

Now, two or three angles were occurring to Doc at the same time, displaying themselves in a sort of hyperdimensional pattern across the
piece of blank office wall he often used for these exercises. Trillium here
might turn out to be some kind of hired heat herself, chasing down Puck
on behalf of whoever
’
d made him afraid enough to split town. Of course,
Puck could always be an ancient-music lover and running some kind of
illicit market in hot sopranino shawms. Or, much more annoyingly, Tril
lium might have been deep
into some number
with Puck and unable to let it go. Doc had learned by now not to second-guess anybody
’
s choice of romantic object, but who the hell was supposed to be looking out for this kid? How much did she know about her dream boy
’
s job history? about Einar? Or had she actually, this smoggy-eyed innocent, found the Puck & Einar Experience trippy in a way Clancy hadn
’
t? And was there
any choice, for the moment, but to dummy up about all this? It would
’
ve
almost been more comforting to think of her as a contract killer.

“
Boris gave me an address in Las Vegas,
”
Trillium said.

“
You want me to what—check it out?
”

“
I want you to come along with me to Vegas and help me find him.
”

Sucker. Sap. And other old-movie terms that were sure to occur
to Doc in a minute. He saw the hustle in progress but as usual was think
ing with his dick. Not to mention more sentimentally. Whatever the difference was.
“
Sure thing,
”
he said.
“
Do you happen to have a picture of
this gent?
”

Did she. Out of her shoulder bag, she fished one of those plastic accor
dion things with room for—he lost count—maybe a hundred snapshots
of Puck and Trillium, walking on the beach in the sunset, dancing at
different mass outdoor gatherings, playing volleyball, running in and
out of the surf—it looked like a personals ad in the
L.A. Free Press,
only
longer and with pictures. Doc noticed that Puck had his head shaved
and tattooed with a swastika, which might help with ID
’
ing him, if and when. Also, in at least half the snapshots was a third presence, eyes set
close together, one side of his upper lip lifted in discontent, managing
usually to squeeze in between Trillium and Puck.

“
And this would be ...
”

“
Einar. An associate of Puck
’
s, they met in the penitentiary.
”

“
All right if I take a couple of these, just to show around?
”

“
Not at all. When can we leave?
”

“
Anytime. There
’
s a shuttle flight out of West Imperial, if that
’
s
cool.
”

“
Beyond cool,
”
she said.
“
Driving freaks me out.
”

actually, it was flying
that freaked Doc out, but he kept forgetting
why, and didn
’
t remember this time till the plane was touching down at McCarran. He briefly considered freaking out anyway, just to keep in
practice, but then Trillium might wonder why, which could be a hassle
to explain, and besides the moment had passed.

After renting a bright red
‘
69 Camaro, they went looking for someplace
to stay, preferably close to the airport, because Doc was hoping for a quick in and out, heading east on Sunset Road to Boulder Highway and cruising a neighborhood of low-end motels and locals
’
casinos and bars with live rock n
’
roll before settling on Ghostflower Court, a collection
of bungalows dating from the fifties. They checked into a two-room unit
in back with a shake roof—a little run-down maybe, but spacious and comfortable inside, with a fridge, hot plate, air-conditioning, cable TV and two king-size water beds with leopard-print sheets.
“
Far out,
”
said Doc,
“
I wonder if these vibrate.
”
They didn
’
t.
“
Bummer.
”

The address Boris had given Trillium was in a neglected trapezoid of
streets east of the Strip, between Sahara and Downtown. The street floor
was occupied by an antiques seller who introduced himself as Delwyn Quight.
“
Most of it
’
s pawnshop consignments, but have a look, half of what
’
s here I don
’
t even know about.
”
He produced a Japanese stash box of black lacquer and mother-of-pearl in a crane-and-willow motif and full of prerolled joints, lit one up, and they passed it around.

“
Lot of Wild West stuff here,
”
it seemed to Doc. He remembered Big-
foot Bjornsen and his hundred pounds of barbed wire.
“
You got some-thin I could bring a bobwire collector? Not a lot understand, maybe a small li
’
l piece
...
”

“
Just sold off the end of my last spool, and it
’
s all Japanese repros now
anyway. But here, you might want to have a look at this—came in yesterday, direct from an archaeological dig in Tombstone.
”

It was an ordinary-looking coffee mug with a third of the top covered
over except for a small mouth-hole, intended to keep the mustache of the drinker from getting soaked. The cup was decorated on one side with a vivid green saguaro cactus and on the other with a pair of crossed Buntline Specials above the word
wyatt
in that old-time wanted-poster typeface.

“
Trippy,
”
Doc said,
“
how much?
”

“
I might let it go for a thousand.
”

“
A thousand what?
”

“
Please. This belonged to Marshal Earp himself.
”

“
I was thinking more like two bucks?
”

They began to discuss this and kept wandering from the subject till Doc noticed something over in the corner, how would you put it,
glowing,
sort of.
“
Hey, what
’
s this?
”
What it was was a necktie covered with thousands, or hundreds, of magenta and green sequins in a piano-keyboard pattern and accented tastefully all around the edges with rhinestones.

“
Now that,
”
Quight said,
“
belonged to Liberace—during one of his
shows at the Riviera, while playing Chopin
’
s Grande Valse Brillante with
one hand, Lee took this tie off with the other and flung it into the audience. Autographed on the back, see?
”

Doc tried it on, looked at it in the mirror for a while and how it caught the light and so forth. Quight, still trying to sell the mustache cup, offered to throw the tie in too, and they finally settled on ten dollars for both items.
“
This always happens,
”
the dealer banging his head
softly but expressively against a seed-feed-and-fertilizer clerk
’
s desk, circa
1880,
“
I
’
m smoking myself out of business.
”

“
The other thing,
”
Doc said,
“
we almost forgot is, is you have tenants
upstairs, right?
”

“
Not at the moment, they moved out last week.
”
He sighed.
“
Puck and Einar. A lot of people come and go in this neighborhood, but they were, what
’
s the word—special.
”

“
Did he—did they say where they were going?
”
Trillium
’
s voice slid
ing into a darker register Doc was coming to recognize.

“
Not really. No one ever does, of course.
”

“
Anybody else been by looking for them?
”

“
A couple of gentlemen from the FBI, actually.
”
Quight looked
through the contents of a decorative ashtray from the Sands, said to have
been thrown up into once by Joey Bishop, and located a business card, with
Hugo Borderline, Special Agent
printed down in the corner, and a local phone number and extension in ballpoint.

“
Shit,
”
reflected Doc. And had the Special Agent brought his running
mate Flatweed along as well, a kind
of government busybody twofer?
and if so, why weren
’
t they back in L.A. setting spade revolutionaries
at each others throats? Las Vegas would seem to offer slim pickings in
that direction, unless, like, the Black Nationalist story had been a front
all along for something else, something aimed, let
’
s say, at Organized
Crime, which has said to own the Vegas casinos and pretty much to run
the place these days. But wait—these feds had been in here inquiring
after Puck, and what could Puck
’
s connection be to any of that? Doc
felt a suspicion growing, paranoid as the rapid heartbeat of a midnight awakening, that Puck
’
s fate was included in Mickey
’
s, and the question
to be asking was what kind of business Mickey might
’ve
been doing with
the Mob—or worse, with the FBI.

“
During your chat—was there anything maybe you didn
’
t share with
them?
”

“
I did think about recommending a bar called Curly
’s
out on Rampart, but the more they went on, the less it seemed somehow like their
sort of place.
”

“
This was, like, a Puck-and-Einar hangout?
”

“
Depending on the music policy week to week, that was the impres
sion I got.
”

“
Let me guess. Country and western.
”

“
Broadway show tunes,
”
Trillium said quietly.

“
And how,
”
nodded Quight.

“
Puck used to do Ethel Merman,
”
she recalled.

“
They both did. They
’
d roll in at four
a.m.
singing
‘
There
’
s No Busi
ness Like Show Business.
’
You could hear it coming from blocks away,
slowly getting louder? Nobody ever complained.
”

Back in the car, Doc said,
“
Come on, I
’
ll buy you a enchilada.
”

They drove toward a spectacular desert sunset and turned up South
Main. El Sombrero looked to be a bit of a wait, with a line of hungry
folks spilling out the door of the world-renowned taquerfa and well down the street, drooling on the sidewalk and so forth. Doc drove on
past, and then around a couple more corners to the neon grandiosities
of Tex-Mecca, unknown to guidebooks but for a network of hungry
dopers and petty criminals all along the U.S.-Mexican border an object
of pilgrimage.

Two steps in the door of which, who did Doc catch sight of but FBI
Special Agents Borderline and Flatweed, both in the synchronized act of
stuffing dimly perplexed Anglo faces with the house
’s
celebrated Giant
Burrito Special. Well, Doc supposed, the FBI did have to eat someplace.
He searched his media memory for instances of Inspector Lewis Erskine
ever eating anything, and came up blank. Before the brown-suited tools
of justice recognized him, Doc steered Trillium quickly to a corner table
out of their line of sight and hid behind a menu, resolved that not even a
downer like feds in the area would get in the way of his appetite.

A waitress came over, and they ordered a lengthy combination
of enchiladas, tacos, burritos, tostadas, and tamales for two called El Atomico, whose entry on the menu carried a footnote disclaiming legal
responsibility.

“
Do you know those men over there?
”
Trillium said.
“
They seem to
know you.
”

Doc leaned to where he could see. The two agents, now heading out
the door, kept glaring back his way.

“
It
’s
those federals that Quight was talking about.
”

“
Is it something to do with Puck? Do you think he
’
s in trouble with
the FBI?
”

“
Okay, you knew he was a pe
rsonal bodyguard of Mickey Wolf
mann s, right? and now Mickey is a possible kidnap. So they might have
a couple of routine questions for Puck, would be all.
”

“
He can
’
t go back to prison, Doc. It would kill him.
”

She had that lovelorn look on her face. Doc had already deduced that
he could be Mick Jagger, pay fees in the range of six figures per fleeting
smile, even give up watching the Lakers, and nothing he did would make
the least impression—for this chick it was Puck Beaverton or nobody.
Not the first time Doc had run into girl-of-his-dreams unavailability.
The thing right now was to be professional if not groovy and try to put
her mind at rest.

“
So tell me, Trillium—how did you two kids meet?
”

Bless her, she thought he really wanted to know.
“
Well, at UCLA, as it turns out, in Pauley Pavilion.
”

“
No kidding, hey, weren
’
t those guys incredible last season? I
’
m sure gonna miss Kareem and Lucius—
”

No, actually, not basketball. The L.A. Philharmonic also happened to play at Pauley Pavilion off and on, a cross-cultural music series with guest artists like Frank Zappa, and sometimes there
’
d be a last-minute opening for a local reedperson. One afternoon Trillium showed up at a
rehearsal with an English horn and feelings of skepticism about the work
in question, somebody
’
s Symphonic Poem for Surf Band and Orchestra, featuring the Boards. Puck happened to be working security for the band. He and Trillium met back in one of the locker rooms, where people kept running in and out during breaks to light up or snort coke. She was bent over a sink, looking down into a compact mirror, felt someone close behind her, and there a little warped through a set of coke lines came looming Puck
’
s face. He was gazing at her ass in a kind of morose fatality. Before Trillium knew what was happening she found herself in
the back seat of a stolen
‘
62 Bonneville parked in a cul-de-sac off Sunset,
being seen to California Department of Corrections style.
“
Chicks say they don
’
t like it this way,
”
Puck explained later, when she had a minute to breathe,
“
and then before you know it they
’
re back again, begging. With me it
’
s just what I got used to.
”

“
Are you apologizing?
”

“
I don
’
t think so.
”

He was right about the begging, though. She found herself carrying
rolls of coins for pay phones because she never knew at what odd moment
of the day the longing would seize hold of her—between freeway exits miles away from his place in West Hollywood, in the produce section of the Safeway, during some fugue for woodwinds, all at once this humiliating heat would envelop her, and there was nothing she could think of to do but call him. He didn
’
t always answer the phone. Once or twice she went crazy and parked outside his p
lace, and waited, for hours, in
fact overnight, till he came out, and by then, afraid of his anger, which
was unpredictable both as to when and how dangerous, reluctant to face
him, she followed him instead out to wherever he was working. And
waited. And would fall asleep. And be awakened by the police telling her
she had to move on.