Inherent Vice (19 page)

‘“
Think
’
?
”
He turned back to Doc, beaming.
“
You
’
re here about your ex-old lady.
”

“
What?
”

“
You got my message. You just don
’
t know you did.
”

“
Oh. Sure, Woo-Woo Telephone and Telegraph, I keep forgetting.
”

“
Not a very spiritual person,
”
Vehi remarked.

“
His attitude needs some work,
”
Sortilege said,
“
but for the level he
’
s
on, he
’
s okay.
”

“
Here, take some of this.
”
Vehi held out a piece of blotter with some
thing written on it in Chinese. Maybe Japanese.

“
Oboy, now what, more through-the-wall sci-fi, right? groovy, can
’
t
wait.
”

“
Not this,
”
said Vehi,
“
this is designed expressly for you.
”

“
Sure. Like a T-shirt.
”
Doc popped it in his mouth.
“
Wait. Expressly for me, what
’
s that mean?
”

But after putting onto his stereo, at top volume, Tiny Tim singing
“
The Ice Caps Are Melting,
”
from his recent album, which had been
somehow fiendishly programmed to repeat indefinitely, Vehi had either
left the area or become invisible.

At least it wasn
’
t quite as cosmic as the last trip this acid enthusiast had acted as travel agent for. When it began exactly wasn
’
t too clear, but at some point, via some simple, normal transition, Doc found himself in the vividly lit ruin of an ancient city that was, and also wasn
’
t,
everyday Greater L.A.—stretching on for miles, house after house, room
after room, every room inhabited. At first he thought he recognized the
people he ran into, though he couldn
’
t always put names to them. Every
body living at the beach, for example, Doc and all his neighbors, were
and were not refugees from the disaster which had submerged Lemuria thousands of years ago. Seeking areas of land they believed to be safe,
they had settled on the coast of California.

Somehow unavoidably the war in
Indochina figured in. The U.S.,
being located between the two oceans into which Atlantis and Lemuria had disappeared, was the middle term in their ancient rivalry, remaining trapped in that position up to the present day, imagining itself to be fighting in Southeast Asia out of free will but in fact repeating a karmic
loop as old as the geography of those oceans, with Nixon a descendant of
Atlantis just as Ho Chi Minh was of Lemuria, because for tens of thousands of years all wars in Indochina had really been proxy wars, going back, back to the previous world, before the U.S., or French Indochina, before the Catholic Church, before the Buddha, before written history, to the moment when three Lemurian holy men landed on those shores,
fleeing the terrible inundation which had taken their homeland, bringing with them the stone pillar they had rescued from their temple in Lemuria and would set up as the foundation of their new life and the heart of their
exile. It would become known as the sacred stone of Mu, and over the centuries to follow, as invading armies came and went, the stone would
be taken away each time for safekeeping to a secret location, to be put up
someplace different when the troubles were over. Ever since France began
colonizing Indochina, on through the present occupation by the U.S., the sacred stone had remained invisible, withdrawn into
it’s
own space
...

Tiny Tim was still singing the same number. Moving through the three-dimensional city labyrinth, Doc noticed after a while that the
lower levels seemed a little damp. By the time the water was ankle-deep,
he began to get the idea. This entire vast structure was sinking. He
went up steps to higher and higher levels, but the water level kept rising.
Beginning to panic, and cursing Vehi for setting him up once again, he felt more than saw the Lemurian spirit guide Kamukea as a shadow of
deep clarity
...
We must leave now, said the voice in his mind.

They were flying together, close to the tops of the waves of the Pacific. There was dark weather at the horizon. Ahead of them a white
blur began to sharpen and grow, and slowly it resolved into the sails of a
topmasted schooner, running along full-spread before a fresh breeze. Doc
recognized the
Golden Fang. Preserved,
Kamukea silently corrected him.
This was no dream ship—every sail and
piece of rigging was doing
it’s
work, and Doc could hear the snap of canvas and the creak of timbers. He
angled in toward the port quarter of the schooner, and there was Shasta Fay, brought here, it seemed, under some kind of duress, out on deck, alone, gazing back at the way she
’
d come, the home she
’
d left.... Doc
tried calling her name but of course words out here were only words.

She
’
ll be all right, Kamukea assured him. You don
’
t have to worry. That is another thing you must learn, for what you must learn is what I am showing you.

“
I
’
m not sure what that means, man.
”
Even Doc could feel now
how mercilessly, despite the wind and the sails of the moment so clean
and direct, this honest old fishing vessel had come to be inhabited— possessed—by an ancient and evil energy. How would Shasta be safe in that?

I have brought you this far, but now you must return through your
own efforts. The Lemurian was gone, and Doc was left at his negligible
altitude above the Pacific to find his way out of a vortex of corroded history, to evade somehow a future that seemed dark whichever way he turned
...

“
It
’
s okay, Doc.
”
Sortilege had been calling his name now for a while. They were outside on the beach, it was nighttime, Vehi wasn
’
t there. The ocean lay close by, dark and invisible except for luminescence where the
surf broke stately as the bass line to some great uncontainable rock n
’
roll classic. From somewhere back in the alleys of Gordita Beach came
gusts of dopers
’
merriment.

“
Well—
”

“
Don
’
t say it,
”
warned Sortilege.
“
Don
’
t say,
‘
Let me tell you about my trip.
’”

“
Makes no sense. Like, we were out in this—
”

“
I can either press your lips gently closed with my finger or—
”
She made a fist and positioned it near his face.

“
If your guru Vehi did not just set me up
...
”

After about a minute, she said,
“
What?
”

“
Huh? What was I talkin about?
”

_EIGHT

THE BANK DEPOSIT FORM SLOANE WOLFMANN HAD GIVEN DOC
was from Arbolada Savings and Loan in Ojai. This, according to Aunt Reet, was one of many S&Ls Mickey held a controlling interest in.

“
And their customers, how would you describe them?
”

“
Mostly individual homeowners, what we in the profession refer to as
tuckers,
’”
replied Aunt Reet.

“
And the loans—anything out of the ordinary?
”

“
Ranchers, local contractors, may
be some Rosicrucians and Theoso
phists now and then—oh and of course there
’
s Chryskylodon, who
’
ve been doing a heap of building and landscaping and tacky but expensive interior design lately.
”

As if his head was a 3-D gong just struck by a small hammer, Doc recalled the blurry foreign word in the photo of Sloane he
’
d seen at her house.
“
How do you spell that, and what is it?
”

“
Got one of their brochures someplace on this desk, down around the
Precambrian layer as I recall.
..
aha! Here:
‘
Located in the scenic Ojai Valley, Chryskylodon Institute, from an ancient Indian word meaning
“
serenity,
”
provides silence, harmony with the Earth, and unconditional compassion for those emotionally at risk owing to the unprecedented stressfulness of life in the sixties and seventies.
’”

“
Sure sounds like a high-rent loony bin, don
’
t it.
”

“
The pictures don
’
t tell you much, everything
’
s been shot with grease
on the lens, like some girlie magazine. There
’
s a phone number here.
”
Doc copied it, and she added,
“
Call your mother, by the way.
”

“
Oh, shit. Something happen?
”

“
You didn
’
t call for a week and a half, is what happened.
”

“
Work.
”

“
Well, the latest is, is they think you
’
re a dope dealer now. The impres
sion I get, I should say.
”

“
Right, well, seeing Gilroy
’
s the one with the life, operations manager
for whatever, grandkids and acreage and so forth, stands to reason, don
’
t
it, I should be the one with the narcs breathin down my neck.
”

“
Preaching to the choir, Doc, I wanted out of that place before I could
talk. They
’
d catch me pedaling a mile a minute on my li
’
l pink trike
heading out through the beet fields, and drag me back screaming. Nothing you can tell me about the San Joaquin, kid. Then again, Elmina says
she misses your voice.
”

“
I
’
ll call her.
”

“
She also agrees with me you should look at that two-acre piece out in Pacoima.
”

“
Not me, man.
”

“
Still on the market, Doc. And like we say in the business, get a lot while you
’
re young.
”

Leo Sportello and Elmina Breeze had met up in 1934 at the World
’
s Largest Outdoor Rummy Game, held annually in Ripon. Leo, reaching for one of her discards, said something like,
“
Now, you
’
re sure you don
’
t want that,
”
and as Elmina told it, the minute she looked up from
her cards and into his eyes, she was sure as salvation about what she did
want. She was still living at home then, student-teaching, and Leo had a good job at one of the wineries, known for a fortified product marketed up and down the coast as Midnight Special. Every time Leo so
much as put his head in the door, Elmina
’
s father would go into a W. C.
Fields routine—
”
Ah? the wino
’
s frien-n-n-d
...
ye-e-esss
...
”
Leo began
to make a point of bringing some o
ver whenever he came to pick up
Elmina for a date, and before long his future father-in-law was buying the stuff by the case, using Leo
’
s company discount. The first wine Doc ever drank was Midnight Special, part of Grandpa Breeze
’
s concept of baby-sitting.