She nodded graciously, and Doc fished out a pack of Benson & Hedges menthol he’d remembered to bring instead of Kools, given the expected class level here and so forth, and offered her one, and they both lit up. Sounds reached them, from a pool whose dimensions he could only imagine, of policemen at play.
“I’ll try to keep this brief, and you can return to your guests. Your husband was planning to endow a new wing for us, as part of our expansion program, and shortly before his puzzling disappearance he actually had tendered us a sum in advance. But somehow it just didn’t seem right to keep the money while so little is known of his whereabouts. So, we’d like to refund you the sum, preferably before the end of the quarter, and if and as we all pray when Mr. Wolfmann is next heard from, why then, perhaps the process can resume.”
She was squinting, however, and shaking her head a little. “I’m not sure. . . . We recently endowed another facility, in Ojai, I believe. . . . Are you somehow a subsidiary or . . .”
“Perhaps it’s one of our Sister Sanatoria, there’s been a program for some years. . . .”
She had stepped over to a small antique desk in the corner, bent so as to present to Doc’s gaze an unquestionably alluring ass, and took some time rummaging through different pigeonholes before coming up with another publicity shot of herself. This was a photo of a groundbreaking ceremony, with Sloane sitting at the controls of a front-end loader and backhoe rig, in whose bucket could be seen one of those oversize checks that also get handed to winners of bowling tournaments. A personage in a doctor outfit was smiling and pretending to look at the amount, which ran to a lot of zeros, but he was really gazing up Sloane’s skirt, which was fashionably short. She was also wearing shades, almost as if she didn’t want to be recognized, and an expression conveying how much she didn’t want to be there. A banner behind her carried a date and the name of the institution, though both were just out of focus enough that Doc couldn’t get much more than an impression of a long, foreign-looking word. He was wondering how suspicious it would make Sloane if he asked the name, when Luz came back in with a tray holding a gigantic pitcherful of margaritas and some chilled glasses of an exotic shape whose only purpose was to make it impossible for the servants to wash them without the help of some high-ticket custom dishmop.
“Thank you, Luz. Shall I be Mother?” taking the pitcher and pouring. Doc noticed there was an extra glass on the tray, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise when presently he saw reflected in the screen of a mammoth TV in the corner a large, muscular blond person coming silently down the stairs and moving toward them across the carpeting like an assassin in a kung fu movie.
Doc got up to have a look and say howdy, quickly noting that any prolonged eye contact here would mean a visit to the chiropractor for neck work, this party having three feet of altitude on him, easy.
“This is Mr. Riggs Warbling,” said Sloane, “my spiritual coach.” Doc didn’t see them actually “exchanging glances,” as Frank might put it, but if acid-tripping was good for anything, it helped tune you to different unlisted frequencies. No doubt these two had actually sat now and then on adjoining meditation mats pretending to empty their heads, just for anybody that might be nearby—Luz, the heat, himself. But Doc would bet an ounce of seedless Hawaiian and throw in a pack of Zig-Zags that Sloane and old Riggs here were also fucking regularly, and that this was the b.f. Shasta had mentioned.
Sloane poured Riggs a drink and angled the pitcher inquiringly in Doc’s direction.
“Thanks, got to be back in the office. Maybe you can tell us where to send this refund, and what form you’d like it in?”
“Small bills!” boomed Riggs amiably, “with nonconsecutive serial numbers!”
“Riggs, Riggs,” Sloane not as grimly as might be expected given the possibility, still open, that her husband had been kidnapped, “always making with the tasteless jokes . . . Perhaps if one of your company officers simply endorsed Michael’s check back to one of his bank accounts?”
“Of course. Let us know the account number and it’s as good as in the mail.”
“I’ll just go pop in the office for a moment, then?”
Riggs Warbling had appropriated the margarita jug, which he was taking sips from without going through the exercise of pouring anything into a glass. With no warning he blurted, “I’m into zomes.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I’m a contractor, I design and build zomes? That’s short for ‘zonahedral domes.’ Greatest advance in structure since Bucky Fuller. Here, let me show you.” He had brought out from somewhere a pad of quadrille paper and begun sketching on it, using numbers, and symbols which might have been Greek, and pretty soon he was going on about “vector spaces” and “symmetry groups.” Doc grew convinced of unwelcome developments inside his brain, though the diagrams were kind of hip-looking . . .
“Zomes make great meditation spaces,” Riggs went on. “Do you know, some people have actually walked into zomes and not come back out the same way they went in? and sometimes not at all? Like zomes are portals to someplace else. Especially if they’re located out in the desert, which is where I’ve been for most of last year?”
Uh, huh. “You’ve been working for Mickey Wolfmann?”
“At Arrepentimiento—that’s a longtime dream project of his, near Las Vegas. Maybe you saw the piece on it in Architectural Digest?”
“Missed it.” Actually, the only magazine Doc read with any regularity was Naked Teen Nymphos, which he subscribed to, or at least used to till he began to find the few copies that made it to his mailbox opened already and with pages stuck together. But he decided not to mention this. Sloane came sashaying back over, holding a slip of paper. “The only number I can find at the moment is for a joint account at one of Michael’s S&Ls, I hope that won’t present a problem for your people. Here’s a blank deposit form, if that’s any help.”
Doc stood, and Sloane stayed where she was, which was close enough for her to be seized and violated, a thought which unavoidably crossed Doc’s mind, taking its time, in fact, and more than once looking back and winking. Who knows what lurid acts might have followed had Luz not reappeared and flashed him, unless he was hallucinating from tequila, a warning look.
“Luz, could you please see Mr. Sportello out?”
Downstairs among corridors leading off to some unknown number of bedroom suites, Doc, as if just remembering he had to piss, said, “Mind if I use a bathroom?”
“Sure, long as you don’t steal anything.”
“Oh, dear. I hope that doesn’t mean any of those policemen out by the pool have been reverting to type—um, that is to say—”
She wagged a finger no, and glancing quickly around, as if the house might be bugged, crooked her arm and flexed a bicep, while rolling her eyes upstairs.
Riggs—it figured. Doc smiled and nodded and for the benefit of any audience said, “Thank you, uh . . . muchas gracias there, Luz, I won’t be but a minute.”
She slouched gracefully against a doorway and watched him, her eyes dark and busy. Doc located the door to a palatial bathroom and, guessing it was Mickey’s, went in, and then on into the adjoining bedroom.
Snooping around, he came across a number of strange neckties hanging inside a walk-in closet on a rack of their own. He switched on a light and had a look. At first glance they seemed to be vintage hand-painted silk ties, each with an image of a different nude young woman on it. But these were not exactly vintage nudes. Erect clits, spread pussy lips with sort of highlights on them to suggest wetness, over-the-shoulder invitations to anal entry, each goose bump and pubic hair painstakingly set down in photographic detail. Doc became lost in art appreciation, having noticed something striking about the faces as well. They weren’t just cartoon features taking on some catalog of fuck-me expressions. These seemed to be the faces, and he guessed the bodies, of specific women. Maybe some kind o
f a Mickey Wolfmann girlfriend inventory. Was Shasta Fay in here, by any chance? Doc began to flip through the ties one by one, trying not to sweat on anything. He had just come across Sloane’s image—inarguably Sloane and not just some blonde—lying back among tangled sheets, arms and legs open, eyelids lowered, lips shining—an almost gentlemanly angle to Mickey’s character he hadn’t counted on—when a hand slid around his waist from behind.
“Yaagghhh!”
“Keep looking, I’m in there someplace,” Luz said.
“I’m ticklish, babe!”
“There I am. Cute, huh?” Sure enough, it was Luz in full color, on her knees, gazing upward with her teeth bared in what wasn’t, it seemed to Doc, a specially inviting smile.
“My tits aren’t really that big, but it’s the thought that counts.”
“Did you ladies all pose for these?”
“Yep, guy over in North Hollywood, does custom work.”
“How about that chick what’s-her-name,” Doc trying to keep a tremor out of his voice. “The one that’s been missing?”
“Oh, Shasta. Yeah, she’s in there someplace,” but as it turned out, strangely, she wasn’t. Doc looked at the couple-three ties remaining, but none of them had Shasta’s picture on it.
Luz was gazing over his shoulder into Mickey’s bedroom. “He always used to take me in the shower to fuck,” she reminisced. “I never got a chance to do anything on that groovy bed in there.”
“Seems easy enough to arrange,” Doc said smoothly, “maybe—” At which point, wouldn’t you know, came a horrible low-fidelity screech from an intercom speaker out in the hall. “¡Luz! ¿Dónde estás, mi hijita?”
“Shit,” murmured Luz.
“Another time, perhaps.”
At the door Doc gave her one of the fake MICRO cards, which had his real office number on it. She slipped it in the back pocket of her jeans.
“You’re not really a shrink, are you?”
“Y—maybe not. But I do have a couch?”
“¡Psicodélico, ése!” Flashing those famous teeth.
Doc was just getting in his car when a black-and-white came barrelling around the corner with all its lights going, and pulled up next to him. A window on the shotgun side came cranking down, and Bigfoot leaned out.
“Wrong part of town for scoring weed, isn’t it, Sportello?”
“What—you mean my mind’s been wanderin again?”
The cop driving killed the motor, and they both got out and approached Doc. Unless Bigfoot had been demoted in some strange piece of LAPD disrespect Doc knew he’d never begin to understand, this other cop could in no way have been Bigfoot’s partner, though he might be a close relative—they both had the same smooth and evil look. This party now raised his eyebrows at Doc. “Mind if we have a look through that attractive purse, sir?”
“Nothing but my lunch,” Doc assured him.
“Oh, we’ll see you get your lunch.”
“Now, now, Sportello’s only doing his job,” Bigfoot pretended to soothe the other cop, “trying to figure out what happened to Mickey Wolfmann, just like the rest of us. Anything so far you’d like to share on that, Sportello? Who’s—beg pardon, how’s—the missus doing?”
“That’s one brave little lady,” Doc, nodding sincerely. He thought about getting into what Pat Dubonnet had told him about Bigfoot and Mickey being ace buddies, but there was something about the way this other cop was listening to them . . . way too attentive, maybe even, if you wanted to be paranoid about it, as if he was undercover, reporting to some other level inside the LAPD, his real job, basically, to keep an eye on Bigfoot. . . .
Too much to think about. Doc deployed his most feckless doper’s grin. “There’s law enforcement in there, guys, but nobody introduced me. Could even be the federales for all I know.”
“I love it when a case goes all to hell,” remarked Bigfoot with a sunny smile. “Don’t you, Lester, doesn’t it just remind you why we’re all here?”
“Cheer up, compadre,” said Lester, returning to the car, “our day will come.”
Off they sped, hitting the siren just to be cute. Doc got in his car and sat staring at the Wolfmann residence.
Something had been puzzling him now for a while—namely, what, exactly, was with Bigfoot here, riding around in these black-and-whites all the time? Far as Doc knew, detectives in suits and ties rode in unmarked sedans, usually two at a time, and uniformed officers did the same. But he couldn’t recall ever seeing Bigfoot out on the job with another detective—
Oh, wait a minute. Out of the permanent smog alert he liked to think of as his memory, something began to emerge—a rumor, likely by way of Pat Dubonnet, about a partner of Bigfoot’s who’d been shot and killed a while back in the line of duty. And ever since then, so the story went, Bigfoot had worked alone, no replacements either asked for or assigned. If this meant Bigfoot was still in some kind of cop mourning, he and the dead guy must’ve been unusually close.
This bond between partners was nearly the only thing Doc had ever found to admire about the LAPD. For all the Department’s long sorrowful history of corruption and abuse of power, here was at least something they had not sold but kept for themselves, forged in the dangerous life-and-death uncertainties of one working day after another—something real that had to be respected. No faking it, no question of buying it with favors, money, promotions—the entire range of capitalist inducement couldn’t get you five seconds of attention to your back when it really counted, you had to go out there and earn it by putting your pitiful ass on the line, again and again. Without knowing any details of the history Bigfoot and his late partner had been through together, Doc would still bet the contents of his stash for the next year that Bigfoot if, improbably, asked to generate a list of people he loved, would have put this guy up near the top.
Meaning what, however? Was Doc about to start offering Bigfoot free advice, here? Nonono, bad idea, Doc warned himself, bad idea, just let the man deal with his grief, or whatever it is, without your help, okay?
Sure, Doc answered himself, cool with me, man.
SIX
UNABLE TO REACH HER AT HOME, DOC FINALLY HAD TO CALL Deputy DA Penny Kimball at her office downtown. A lunch date had just happened to cancel, so she agreed to pencil Doc in. He showed up at a peculiar skid-row eatery off Temple where wine abusers up from bedrolls in vacant lots back of what remained of the old Nickel mingled with Superior Court judges taking recess breaks, not to mention a population of lawyers in suits, whose high-decibel jabbering rebounded off the mirrored walls, rattling and threatening at times to knock over all the eighty-five-cent mickeys of muscatel and tokay stacked up in pyramids behind the steam tables.
Presently in strolled Penny, one hand loosely in a jacket pocket, exchanging civilized remarks with any number of perfectly groomed co-workers. She was wearing shades and one of those gray polyester business outfits with a very short skirt.
“This Wolfmann-Charlock case,” is how she greeted Doc—“apparently one of your old girlfriends is a principal?” Not that he was expecting a friendly kiss or anything—there were colleagues watching, and he didn’t want to, what you’d call, fuck up her act. She put her attaché case on the table and sat staring at Doc, a courtroom technique no doubt.
“I just heard that she skipped,” Doc said.
“Put it another way . . . how close were you and Shasta Fay Hepworth?”
He’d been asking himself this for a while now but didn’t know the answer. “It was all over with years ago,” he said. “Months? She had other fish to fry. Did it break my heart? Sure did. If you hadn’t come along, babe, who knows how bad it might’ve got?”
“True, you were a fucking mess. But old times aside, have you had any contact with Miss Hepworth in, say, the last week or so?”
“Well now, funny
you should ask. She called me up a couple days before Mickey Wolfmann disappeared, with a story about how his wife and her boyfriend were plotting to hustle Mickey into the booby hatch and grab all his money. So I sure hope you guys, or the cops or whoever, are looking into that.”
“And with your years of experience as a PI, would you call that a reliable lead?”
“I’ve known worse—oh, wait, I dig, you’re all gonna just ignore this. Right? some hippie chick with boyfriend trouble, brains all discombobulated with dope sex rock ’n’ roll—”
“Doc, I never see you this emotional.”
“’Cause the lights are out, usually.”
“Uh-huh, well apparently you didn’t tell any of this to Lieutenant Bjornsen, when he pulled you in at the crime scene.”
“I promised Shasta I’d come talk to you first, see if anybody at the DA’s shop could help. Kept calling you, day and night, no reply, next thing I know Wolfmann’s gone, Glen Charlock’s dead.”
“And Bjornsen seems to think you’re as good a suspect as anyone in this.”
“‘Seems to—’ you’ve been talking, to Bigfoot, about me? Wow, well never trust a flatland chick, man, prime directive of life at the beach, all we’ve been to each other too, hey if that’s the way it must be, okay, as Roy Orbison always sez,” holding out his wrists dramatically, “let’s git it over with—”
“Doc. Shh. Please.” She was so cute when she got embarrassed, nose-wrinkling and so forth, but it didn’t last long. “Besides, maybe you did do it, has that crossed your mind yet? Maybe you just conveniently forgot about it, the way you do so often forget things, and this peculiar reaction of yours now is a typically twisted way of confessing the act?”
“Well, but . . . How would I forget something like that?”
“Grass and who knows what else, Doc.”
“Hey, come on, I’m only a light smoker.”
“Oh? How many joints a day, on average?”
Inherent Vice Page 7
