Inherent Vice (57 page)

doc had been
on the phone with Crocker Fenway, Japonica’s dad, who had called around noon, interrupting a dream Doc was having
about the schooner
Golden Fang,
which had reassumed
it’s
old working
identity, as well as
it’s
real name,
Preserved.
Somehow the Zen exorcist
Coy had told Doc about, the one who’d dezombified the Boards’ mansion up in Topanga, had also been at work on the schooner, clearing away the dark residues of blood and betrayal.
..
conducting the unquiet
spirits of those who’d been tortured and assassinated aboard her safely to rest. Whatever evil had possessed her was now gone for good.

It was toward sunset, after some rain, the dark lid of clouds rolled
back a few fingers’ widths from the horizon, revealing a strip so clear and
luminous that even homebound traffic out on the freeway was slowing down for it. Sauncho and Doc were out on the beach. Last apricot light flooded landward and brought their shadows uphill, past the lifeguard towers, into terraces of bougainvillea, rhododendrons, and ice plant.

Sauncho was giving a kind of courtroom summary, as if he’d just been handling a case. “.
..
y
et
there is no avoiding time, the sea of time, the sea
of memory and forgetfulness, the years of promise, gone and unrecover
able, of the land almost allowed to claim
it’s
better destiny, only to have
the claim jumped by evildoers known all too well, and taken instead and
held hostage to the future we must live in now forever. May we trust that this blessed ship is bound for some be
tter shore, some undrowned Lemu
ria, risen and redeemed, where the American fate, mercifully, failed to transpire.
..
”

From the beach Doc and Sauncho saw her, or thought they saw her, heading out to sea, all sails glowing and spread. Doc wanted to believe that Coy, Hope, and Amethyst were somehow on board, bound for safety. At the rail, waving. He almost saw them. Sauncho was not so sure. They began to bicker about it.

At which point Crocker had fire-gonged Doc back into another petroleum-scented day at the beach. “Not me,” Doc croaked into the receiver.

“Sure been a long time!” the Prince of Palos Verdes way, way too chirpy for this time of the morning.

“Just a second while I see about a pulse here,” Doc rolling off the couch and staggering into the kitchen. He wandered in small loops, trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing, somehow got water
on to boil and instant coffee in a cup, and after a while also remembered
that the phone was off the hook. “Howdy. And your name was
...
”

Crocker reintroduced himself. “Some people I know have lost some
thing, and there’s a theory developing that you might know where it is.”

Doc drank half a cup of coffee, scalded his mouth, and finally said, “You wouldn’t also happen to be one of the principals in this, man.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, Mr. Sportello, but over the years I’ve become known in this town as something of a fixer. My problem today is that you may be holding in gratuitous bailment an item whose owners wish to reclaim possession, and if this can be arranged quickly enough, there will be no penalties attached.”

“Like, I won’t get wasted or nothing.”

“Luckily for you, that
’s
a sanction they prefer to exercise only against
their own. Given the sorts of business they engage in, without absolute trust in one’s associates all may too swiftly revert to anarchy. Outsiders like yourself tend to get the benefit of the doubt, and you in turn may trust their word without any hesitation.”

“Groovy. Want to meet at the same old place?”

“A parking lot in Lomita? Think not. Too much like your turf. Its
probably been replaced with something else by now anyway. Why don’t we meet this evening at my club, the Portola.” He gave an address near
Elysian Park.

“I bet there’s a dress code,” Doc said.

“Jacket and tie if possible.”

ON THE WAY OVER, DOC KEPT AN EYE ON THE REARVIEW
MIRROR
for inquisitive El Caminos or Impalas. One of many basic things he had failed to learn about Bigfoot was what kind of motor pool he had access to. About the time he reached the Alvarado exit, it occurred to him to start worrying about helicopters, too.

Crocker Fenway’s club was housed in a Moorish Revival mansion dat
ing from the Doheny-McAdoo era. In a room off the lobby where they
sent Doc to cool his heels was a mural depicting the arrival of the Portol
á
expedition in 1769 at a bend of the river near what became downtown L.A. Pretty close to here, in fact. The pictorial style reminded Doc of labels on fruit and vegetable crates when he was a kid. Lots of color, atmosphere, attention to detail. The view was northward, toward the mountains, which nowadays people at the beach managed to see only once or twice a year from the freeway when the smog blew away, but which here, through the air of those early days, were still intensely vis
ible, snow-topped and crystal-edged. A long string of pack mules wound
into the green distance along the banks of the river, which was shaded by cottonwoods, willows, and alders. Everybody in the scene looked like a movie star. Some were on horseback, packing muskets and lances and wearing leather armor. On th
e face of one of them—maybe Por
tol
á
himself? there was an expression of
wonder, like, What’s this, what
unsuspected paradise? Did God with his finger trace out and bless
this perfect little valley, intending it only for us? Doc must have got lost
then for a while in the panorama, because he was startled by a voice behind him.

“An art lover.”

He blinked a couple-three times, turned and saw it was Crocker, looking what they call tanned and fit, and as if somebody had just run a floor buffer all over his face.

“It’s sure some picture,” Doc nodded.

“Never noticed it really. Why don’t we go up to the visitors’ bar. Nice
suit, by the way.”

Nicer than Crocker knew. Doc had found it at the big MGM sell-off not long ago, having headed for it unerringly among the thousands of
racks of more humdrum movie outfits that filled one of the soundstages.
It was calling to him. A note pinned to it said that John Garfield had
worn it in
The Postman Always Rings Twice
(1946), and it turned out to
fit Doc perfectly, but not wishing to compromise what mojo might still be active among
it’s
threads, Doc saw no point in telling Crocker any of this. He’d worn the Liberace necktie as well, which Crocker kept looking at but seemed unable to comment on.

Not Doc’s kind of bar, really. Full of fake-Mission furniture and so much somber wood you couldn’t see what you were sitting on or drinking off of. Some jungle-print upholstery, not to mention more colored lights, would have livened things up.

“Here’s to peaceful resolution,” Crocker raising a squat glassful of a West Highland malt made exclusively for the Portola and angling it toward Doc’s rum and coke.

A subtle reference, no doubt, to recent events out on Gummo Marx
Way. Doc beamed insincerely. “So
..
. how’s the family?”

“If you mean Mrs. Fenway, I remain as devoted to her as I was the
day she came down the aisle at St. John’s Episcopal Church looking like
the Gross National Product. If you mean my lovely daughter Japonica,
on whom I hope you are not idiot enough ever to have considered laying
so much as a finger, why, she’s fine. Fine. In fact, it’s only because of her,
and our own small transaction a few years ago, that I am even cutting you as much slack as I am now.”

“Ever so grateful, sir.” He waited till Crocker was about to swallow some Scotch and said, “By the way—did you ever run into a dentist named Rudy Blatnoyd?”

With as little choking and sputtering as possible, Crocker replied, “The son of a bitch who until recently was corrupting my daughter, yes I do seem to recall the name, perished in a trampoline accident or something, didn’t he?”

“The LAPD’s not so sure it was an accident.”

“And you’re wondering if I did it. What possible motive would I have?
Just because the man preyed on an emotionally vulnerable child, tore her
from the embrace of a loving family, forced her to engage in sexual prac
tices that might appall even a sophisticate like yourself—does that mean
I’d have any reason to see his miserable pedophile career come to an end?
What a vindictive person you must imagine me.”

“You know
...
I did suspect he was fucking his receptionist,” Doc in his most innocent voice, “but I mean, what dentist doesn’t, it’s some oath
they all have to take in dentist school, and anyhow that’s a long way from
strange and weird sex. Isn’t it?”

“How about when he forced my little girl to listen to
original cast
albums
of Broadway musicals while he had his way with her? The taste
lessly decorated resort hotel rooms he took her to during endodontist conventions? the wallpaper! the lamps! And I won’t even get into his secret collection of vintage snoods—”

“Yeah but.
..
Japonica’s legal age now, isn’t she?”

“In a father’s eyes, they’re always too young.” Doc took a quick glance at Crocker’s eyes but didn’t see much fatherly emotion. What he did see made him thankful he’d decided not to smoke too much on the way over.

“To the matter at hand—those I represent are prepared to offer you a generous compensation package for the safe return of their property.”

“Groovy. Suppose it didn’t even have to be in the form of, like, money?”

Crocker for the first time appeared to be taken aback. “Well.
..
money would be a lot easier.”

“I’ve been more concerned about the safety of some people.”

“Oh ... people
...
Well, that would depend, I suppose, on how much of a threat they represent to my principals.”

“I’m thinking about those who are close to me in my life, but there’s also this saxophone player named Coy Harlingen, who’s been working undercover for different antisubversive outfits, including the LAPD? He’s come to feel lately that he made the wrong career choice. It lost him his family and his freedom. Like you, he has an only daughter—”

“Please.
..
”

“Okay, well anyway now he wants out. I think I can square it with the heat, but there’s this other bunch called Vigilant California. And whoever’s running them, of course.”

“Oh, the Viggies, yes a fairly contemptible lot, useful in the street but
no political sense beyond simple hooliganism. My guess is that they’d
prefer he didn’t disclose any confidential information.”

“Last thing he’d ever do.”

“Your personal guarantee.”

“He tries anything, I’ll go after him myself.”

“Barring surprises, then, I don’t see why some amicable separation shouldn’t be arranged for him. That’s all you wanted? No money, now, you’re sure?”

“How much money would I have to take from you so I don’t lose your
respect?”

Crocker Fenway chuckled without mirth. “A bit late for that, Mr.
Sportello. People like you lose all claim to respect the first time they pay
anybody rent.”

“And when the first landlord decided to stiff the first renter for his
security deposit, your whole fucking class lost everybody’s respect.”

“Ah. So you’re looking for what, a refund? Plus how many years’
interest? That’d be a bookkeeping issue, of course, but I expect we could
come up with that.”

“‘Course. Nothin to you, couple hundred bucks, just something to roll up and snort coke through. But see, every time one of you gets greedy like that, the bad-karma level gets jacked up one more little two-hundred-dollar notch. After a while that starts to add up. For years now under everybody’s nose there’s been all this class hatred, slowly building. Where do you think that’s headed?”

“Sounds like you’ve been talking to His Holiness Mickey Wolfmann.
You’ve been out to have a look at Channel View Estates? Some of us moved heaven and earth, mostly earth, to keep that promise of urban blight from happening—one more episode in a struggle that’s been going on for years now—residential owners like me against developers like Brother Wolfmann. People with a decent respect for preserving the environment against high-density tenement scum without the first idea of how to clean up after themselves.”

“Bullshit, Crocker, it’s about your property values.”

“It’s about
being in place.
We—” gesturing around the Visitors’ Bar and
it’s
withdrawal into seemingly unbounded shadow, “we’re in place.
We’ve been in place forever. Look around. Real estate, water rights, oil,
cheap labor—all of that’s ours, it’s always been ours. And you, at the end of the day what are you? one more unit in this swarm of transients who come and go without pause here in the sunny Southland, eager to be bought off with a car of a certain make, model, and year, a blonde in a bikini, thirty seconds on some excuse for a wave—a chili dog, for Christ’s sake.” He shrugged. “We will never run out of you people. The supply is inexhaustible.”

“And you don’t ever worry,” Doc grinned back cordially, “that some
day they’ll all turn into a savage mob screamin around outside the gates of PV, maybe even looking to get in?”

Shrug. “Then we do what has to be done to keep them out. We’ve
been laid siege to by far worse, and we’re still here. Aren’t we.”

“And thank heaven for that, sir.”

“Oh. You people do irony, I wasn’t aware.”

“More like practicality. If you and your friends and lunch companions don’t all remain ‘in place,’ how will average
PIs
like me ever make a living? We can’t get by on matrimonia
l
s and car theft, we need those high-level felony activities you folks are so gifted at.”

“Yes. Well.” Crocker flicked a glance at his Patek Philippe moon-phase. “Actually...”

“Sure. Don’t want to hang you up. Where and when do we do the handoff this time?”

Easy enough. Parking lot at the May Company shopping mall out at Hawthorne and Artesia, tomorrow evening. Transfer of goods to be made only after verification that certain individuals have been allowed
to go their ways unmolested. Future guarantees of personal safety not to
be unreasonably withheld.

“Your reputation as a fixer’s on the line here, Crocker. I may not be as
well connected, and for sure not as much into revenge as you folks are,
but if you been jivin with me here my good man, I say unto you, best watch your ass.”

“Revenge,” protested the sensitive tycoon, “me?”