Inherent Vice (52 page)

“I wasn’t really pissed off at you, you know, ever, Shasta, not about us, I never felt like I was any kind of a injured party or nothing. Fact, for a while, when Mickey really l
ooked like another one of these
straight-to-freak converts, I was even willing to cut him some slack for that. I trusted you on how sincere he was.”

“Trouble is,” a little sadly, “so did I.”

“And if anybody should be revenging themself on anybody’s ass around here
...
”

“Oh,” said Shasta. “Oh. Well. Let me give
that some,
thought.”

She went in the kitchen and found a box of Froot Loops, and they put on the TV and sat companionably eating dry cereal and watching
the Knicks and the Lakers, Doc would have said just like in the old days,
except this was now and he’d come to know a lot less than he thought he
did then.

“Don’t you need the sound on?”

“Nah, it’s all those sneakers, when they squeak like that?”

At halftime she looked over and said, “Something’s on your mind.”

“Coy Harlingen. I ran into him down in Hermosa.”

“So he really didn’t OD like everybody said.”

“Even better’n that, he’s clean now.”

“Glad to hear it. Long may he wave.”

“But he’s caught in something he doesn’t want to be in. He’s been working as a snitch for the LAPD, and I also saw him on the tube at
some Fascism for Freedom rally, pretending to scream at Nixon, working
undercover for this outfit called Vigilant California?”

“Then,” Shasta murmured, “I guess that one’s on my ticket, cause it was me who put Coy in touch with Burke Stodger, and it was Burke who set him up with the Viggies.” No excuse, she went on, it was during that very freaky time for everybody up in Hollywood right after Sharon Tate. It had occurred to very few in the hopeful-starlet community that regular features and low body weight might not after all be counted on to buy you a thing that mattered. The shock of the Cielo Drive murders was bad enough out in civilian life, but the impact on
Shasta and her friends was paralyzing. You could be the sweetest girl in
the business, smart with your money, careful about dope, aware of how far to trust people in this town, which wa
s not at all, you could be nice
to everybody—focus pullers, grips, even writers, people you didn’t even
have to say hello to—and still be horribly murdered for your trouble. Once-overs you’d found ways to ignore now had you looking for the particular highlight off some creep’s eyes that would send you behind
double and triple locks to a room lit only by the TV screen, and whatever
was in the fridge to last you till you felt together enough to step outside again.

“Which is about when I met Burke Stodger. We were neighbors and used to walk our dogs at around the same time every morning, and I
sort of knew who he was but hadn’t seen any of his pictures till one night
I couldn’t sleep, went switching around the channels and came across
.4
5-Caliber Kissoff
Normally I don’t watch that type of movie, but some
thing about this one
...
”

“I can relate!” cried Doc. “That picture made me who I am today. That PI that Burke Stodger played, man, I always wanted to be him.”

“I thought you wanted to be John Garfield.”

“Well, and that all came true, but guess what, John Garfield also hap
pens to show up uncredited in that same movie—remember there’s a funeral scene, where Burke is sort of discreetly fondling the widow at
graveside, usin a umbrella for cover, well if you look closely, just past her
left tit, that’s screen left, a little out of focus, next to a tree, there’s John Garfield in a pinstriped mobster suit and a homburg hat. He was pretty much blacklisted by that point and must have figured a gig’s a gig.”

“Burke ran into that same problem but said he found another solution.”

“One that didn’t get him hassled into a fatal heart attack
...
Ups, but there I go, being bitter again.”

To the dismay of many in the business, Burke had let himself be gathered into the embrace of the same Red-hunting zealots who’d once forced
him to split the country. He testified before subcommittees, and donated his boat to the countersubversive cause, and was soon working again in
modestly budgeted FBI dramas like
Was a Red Dope Fiend
and
Squeal,
Pinko, Squeal!
a
run of luck which lasted as
long as anti-Communist
themes kept putting asses in seats. By the time Shasta met Burke, he was
pretty much semiretired, content to go eighteen low-stakes holes at the
Wilshire Country Club (even nine, if he could find a member who was half Jewish), or hang out at Musso & Franks spinning showbiz yarns
with other old-timers, at least the percentage in the industry who didn’t
cross the street and sometimes the freeway with a nauseous look on their
face to avoid him.

Burke knew a back way onto the golf course, and he and Shasta had
fallen into the habit of making it part of their morning stroll. For Shasta
this was often the best part of the day, busy with early deliveries, yard
and pool work, hosed pavement—still, cool, smelling like the desert after
rain, garden exotics, shadows everywhere to shelter in for a bit before the
day’s empty sky asserted itself.

“I saw you on that
Brady Bunch
episode,” she said one morning.

“I just read for another one, waiting now to hear, something about Jan
gets a wig.” Burke found an almost-unplayed ball in the grass, retrieved
it, and slipped it in his pocket.

“What kind of a wig?”

“Brunette, I think. She gets tired of being a blonde?”

“Tell me about
that.
Still not the same as changing your politics, I
guess.”

She was afraid she’d been too blunt, but he scratched his head elabo
rately and pretended to think. “Well sure, I have second thoughts, third
and fourth, up in the middle of the night, all that old-guy stuff. But they’ve treated me well. I still get out on the boat, sometimes there’s
even work.” Despite the ease and promise of the morning, the jaunty
straw hat, pastel-striped shirt, and pale linen shorts, some sorrowful
veteran-actor note had crept into his voice. “Thanks for not bringing up
Vietnam, by the way. We get started on that, you really might begin to
think less of me.”

“Right now that’s all, like, kind of remote?”

“No boyfriends out in the street screaming ‘Death to the pig,’ rolling
bombs, whatever it is they do?”

She shook her head, smiling. “Forget about political guys, in this
business how many datable guys do I ever run into?”

“Catch as catch can, and ever thus, kid. Only big difference I see
today is the drugs. Pretty much everyplace I look, so many of these wonderful, promising young folks either ending up in stir or else dead.”

By then of course she was thinking about Coy. He was not, could
never be, the love of her life, but she had enough of an ear for music to
respect what he did for a living, if you could call it a living. He was a
good friend, free so far of assholery, and even strung out most of the time
on smack had never looked at her in that creepy Mansonoid way. He
sure needed a break in his life.

“There is this sax player I’ve been sort of worried about?” Going on to
tell Burke more than she meant to about Coy’s history with heroin. “He can’t afford to be on a program, but that’s what he needs. It’s the only
thing that’ll save him.”

Burke walked quietly awhile in the sun. The dogs came over, and
Burke’s dog Addison looked up at him and raised one eyebrow. “See that?
too much sitting in front of the TV, watching George Sanders movies.
No, no—’You’re too short for that gesture.’... But now I think of it,
there is a recovery program, one they tell me really works. Of course I
have no idea if it’s anywhere up your friend’s street.”

Next time she talked to Coy, she passed along Burke’s phone number. “And then Coy just disappeared. Nothing unusual, he was always disap
pearing, one minute he’s there, maybe even in the middle of a solo, next
minute, like, whoa, where’d he go? But this time the silence was like
something you could almost hear?”

“That must’ve been the first time he went inside that joint up at Ojai,”
Doc said.

“The first? How many times has he been in?”

“Don’t know, but I got the feeling he’s a regular up there.”

“So maybe he’s still using.” With an unhappy look on her face.

“Maybe not, Shasta. Maybe something else.”

“What else could it be?”

“Whatever those people are really into, it ain’t helping junkies back on the straight and narrow.”

“I should be saying, ‘Well, Coys a grown person, able to take care of himself
...
’ Only, Doc, he really
can’t
, and that’s why I’m worried. Not just for him but for his wife and baby, too.”

The first time she saw Coy, he was out hitchhiking on Sunset with Hope and Amethyst. Shasta was driving the Eldorado, couldn’t recall how many times up and down this street she could have used a ride herself, so she gave them a lift. They had some car trouble, Coy said, and were looking for a garage. Hope and Amethyst got in the front, and Coy sat in back. The baby, poor little thing, was so flushed and listless. Shasta recognized the soiled hand of smack. It occurred to her that the baby’s parents might only be in Hollywood to score, but she held off from lecturing. Even by then she had learned enough being Mickey Wolfmann’s g.f. to know she didn’t qualify for any grand-lady parts—it was luck, dumb luck, that had put them each where they were, and the
best way to pay for any luck, however temporary, was just to be helpful
when you could.

“And you and Mickey were already, like, into it by then?” Doc couldn’t help asking.

“Nosy fuck, ain’t you?”

“Put it another way—how’d you and Coy’s wife get along?”

“That was the only time I ever saw her. They were staying down in Torrance someplace, Coy was hardly ever home. Did I give him my phone number, no, couple days later I was on La Brea, Coy was in the line at Pink’s, saw the Eldorado, came running into traffic, the rest is history. Were we an item? Was I running around on Mickey? What a thing to ask.”

“When did I—”

“Listen, in case you haven’t figured it out, I was
never
the sweetest girl
in the business, there was no reason for me to waste half a minute on a sick junkie like Coy, who was clearly headed for a bad end. He was no
t
my charity project, and we didn’t shoot up together, and anyway, if you stop to think about some of the chicks
you’ve
hung out with—”

“Okay. Whatever you meant to do, you ended up saving his life. And then he went on to be a snitch for the LAPD and a undercover agent for the Viggies and maybe the Golden Fang—the outfit, not the boat—and there’s three stiffs so far th
at may or may not be on his kar
mic ticket.”

“Wait. You think Coy—” She got up on an elbow and peered at him red-eyed. “You think
Vm
in on this, Doc?”

Doc stroked his chin and gazed off into space for a while. “You know how some people say they have a gut feeling’? Well, Shasta Fay, what I
have is
dick feelings,
and my dick feeling sez—”

“So glad I asked. I’m making coffee, you want some?”

“You bet.
..
but now, I
was
sort of wondering
...
”

“Uh-oh.”

“When I said I saw Coy in Hermosa? You didn’t seem too surprised.”

There was a long silence from the kitchen, except for coffeemaking sounds. She came back in and paused in the doorway, one hip out, one knee bent, beautiful naked Shasta. “I saw him once in Laurel Canyon, and he made me swear never to mention it to anybody. He said it would be his ass if anybody found out. But he didn’t get into details.”

“Sounds like even then somebody was desperate to keep that cover story from falling apart. Which it did anyway, right from the first time Coy ever tried to use it. What the hell did he think was going to happen?”

“I don’t know. What did you think, back when you got into your PI trip?”

“Different situation.”

“Oh? far as I can see, you and Coy, you’re peas in a pod.”

“Thanks. How’s that.”