Inherent Vice (47 page)

DOC HAD NEVER KEPT COUNT, BUT HE*D PROBABLY SPENT
WAY
more time in the Hall of Justice on the upper floors, in the men’s lockup, than
downstairs on the other side of the law. The elevators were run by a squad
of uniformed women commanded and terrified by a large, jail-matronly
lady with an Afro who stood in the lobby with a pair of castanets dispatch
ing the individual cars with different signals.
Tkk-trrrrrkk-tk-tk
might
mean, for example, “Elevator Two’s up next, that’s forty-five seconds in
and out, let’s be movin it,” and so forth. She gave Doc a serious once-over
before letting him aboard.

Penny shared her cubicle with ano
ther deputy DA named Rhus Froth
ingham. When Doc put his head in the door, Penny did not exactly gasp but did start hiccupping uncontrollably. “Are you all right?” said Rhus.

Between hiccups Penny explained, though all Doc could make out was “... the one I was telling you about...”

“Should I call Security?”

Penny threw Doc an inquiring look, like, so, should she? It might as well be stewardii out at the beach around here. Rhus sat rigidly at her desk, pretending to read through a file. Penny excused herself and
headed for the ladies’ lounge, leaving Doc immersed in Rhus’s glare like an old car radiator in an acid bath. After a while he got up and ankled his
way down the corridor and met Penny coming out of the toilet. “
Only
wondering when you’d be free for dinner. Didn’t mean to freak you out. I’ll even spring for it.”

That sideways look. “Thought you’d never want to speak to me again.”

“The FBI has actually been fantastically stimulating company, so I figure at least I owe you some ribs or somethin.”

What it turned out to be was a recently opened gourmet health-food joint off Melrose called The Price of Wisdom, which Doc had heard about from Denis, who’d given it a rave. It was upstairs from a dilapidated bar where Doc remembered hanging out during one of his seedier phases, he forgot which. Penny looked up at the flickering red neon sign and frowned. “Ruby’s Lounge, uh-huh, I remember it well,
it used to be good for at least one felony arrest per week.”

“Groovy cheeseburgers as I recall.”

“Voted unanimously by local food critics the Southland
’s
Most
T
oxic.

“Sure, but it kept down the health-code violations, all those mice and
roaches every morning with their li’l feet in the air, stone dead next to the burgers that done the deed?”

“Getting hungrier by the minute.” Directed by a hand-lettered sign
reading,
the price of wisdom is above ruby’s, job
28:18,
Doc a
nd Penny ascended into a room full of ferns, exposed bricks, stained glass, tablecloths on the tables and Vivaldi on the sound system, none of these
for Doc too promising. Waiting for a table, he eyeballed the clientele,
many of whom seemed to have fitness issues, gazing at each other over
and around salads detailed as the miniature mountains in Zen gardens, trying to identify various soybean-derived objects with the aid of pocket flashlights or magnifying lenses, sitting with knife and fork
gripped in either fist regarding platters of Eggplant Wellington or rhom
boids of vivid green kale loaf on plates too big for them by an order of magnitude.

Doc began to wonder, too late, just how stoned Denis had been when
he came in here. It didn’t get any
more encouraging when the menus
finally arrived. “Can you read any of this?” Doc said after a while. “I can’t read this, is it me, or some foreign language thing?”

She gave him a smile he had learned not to trust too heavily. “Yes, so
clear something up for me, Doc, because taking me out to a place like this could be construed as a hostile act—are you pissed off at me? Not pissed off?”

“That’s the choice? Well, give me a minute
...
”

“Those federal guys helped me out with something once. This seemed
like an easy way to return the favor.”

“That’s me,” said Doc. “Always easy.”

“You
are
pissed off.”

“I’m over it. But you didn’t ask me beforehand.”

“You would
’ve
said no. You people all hate the FBI.”

“What are you talking about, us people? I was a Dick Tracy Junior G-Man, sent away for this kit? Learned how to snoop on all the neighbors, fingerprinted everybody in first grade, got the ink all over everything, they sent me to the principal’s office—’But I’m a Junior G-Man! They know about me in Washington, D.C.!’ I had to stay after school for a month, but it was Mrs. Keeley and I got to look up her dress now and then, so that was cool.”

“What a horrible little boy.”

“See, it was way before they invented miniskirts—”

“Listen, Doc, the feds really want to know what you were doing in Vegas.”

“Hanging with Frank and the gang, playing a little baccarat, more important, what were your two cheap-suit idiot friends doing there getting in my face?”

“Please. They can subpoena you. They have permanent grand juries that have been known to indict a bean burrito. They can put you in a world of heartache.”

“Just to find out why I went to Vegas? That sounds really cost-effective.”

“Or you can tell me, and I’ll tell them.”

“As one Junior G-Person to another, Penny, what are you getting out
of this?”

She grew solemn. “Maybe you don’t want to know.”

“Let me guess. It isn’t something nice they’ll do
for
you, it’s something shitty they won’t do
to
you.”

She touched his hand, as if she did it so seldom she wasn’t sure of how.
“If I could believe for one second ...”

“That I could protect you.”

“At this point even a practical idea would help.”

Midnight, pitch dark, can’t remember whether they drained the pool or not, hey, what the fuck’s it matter? He bounced once, twice, then off the end of the board and down in a blind cannonball. “You probably know your pals have Mickey Wolfmann.”

“The FBI.” There might’ve been a question mark on the end, but Doc
didn’t hear it. Her eyes narrowed, and he noticed enough of a pulse in
her temple to make one of her drop earrings begin to flash like a warning
light. “We’ve suspected, but can’t prove anything. Can you?”

“I saw him in their custody.”

“You saw him.” She thought for a few seconds, tapping a high-school
marching-band beat on the tablecloth. “Would you be willing to depone
for
me?”

“Sure babe, you bet!... Uh
wait
a minute, what
does
that
mean
?”

“You, me, a tape machine, maybe another DDA to witness it?”

“Wow, I’ll even throw in a few bars of ‘That’s Amore.’ Only thing is
...
”

“All right, what is it
you
want.”

“I need to look at somebody’s jacket. Ancient history, but
it’s
still under seal. Like till 2000?”

“That’s it? No big thing, we do that all the time.”

“What, break into officially sealed records? And here I had such faith
in the system.”

“At this rate you’ll be ready for your bar exam any day now. Listen, would you mind if we just went back to my place?”
and immediately
Doc—though he would have wagered against it—got a hardon. As if
she’d noticed it, she added, “And we can pick up a pizza on the way.”

There was a time, back in his period of impulse-control deficit, when
Doc’s reply would’ve had to be, “Marry me.” What he said now was, “Your hair’s different.”

“Somebody talked me into seeing this hotshot on Rodeo Drive. He puts in these streaks, see?”

“Groovy. Looks like you’ve been living at the beach for a while.”

“They were promoting a Surfer Chick Special.”

“Just for me, huh?”

“Who else, Doc.”

Back at Penny’s place it took maybe a minute and a half to deal with the pizza. Both of them reached at the same time for the last slice. “I believe this is mine,” said Doc.

Penny let go of the pizza and slid her hand down, took hold of his
penis, and gave it a squeeze. “And this, I believe
...
” She reached over a
stash box with some Asian buds in it he’d been smelling since he came in the room. “Roll us one while I go find an appropriate outfit.” He was just twisting the ends of the joint when she came back wearing nothing at all.

1 here you go.

“Now, you’re sure you’re not pissed off.”

“Me? pissed off, what’s that?”

“You know, if somebody I cared about, even in a casual-sex sort of way, had shopped
me
to the FBI? I’d certainly think twice
...
” Doc lit up and passed her the joint. “I mean,” she added thoughtfully when next
she exhaled, “if it was
my
dick? and some self-satisfied lady prosecutor
thought she was getting away with something?”

“Oh,” said Doc. “Well, you’ve got a point
...
Here, let me.
..
.”

“Just try it,” she cried, “you drug-crazed hippie freak, get your hand
out of there, who said you could do that, let go of my, what do you think
you’re—” By which time they were fucking, you could say, energetically.
It was quick, not too quick, it was mean and nas
ty enough, it was great
stoned fun, and in fact for an untimably short moment Doc believed it was somehow never going to be over, though he managed not to get panicked about that.

Normally Penny would
’
ve jumped
right up again and gotten reim
mersed in some straight-world activity, and Doc would have found his
way to the TV set on some chance the playoffs, even though it was Eastern Division tonight, might still be on. But instead, as if both appreciated
the importance of silence and embrace, they just lay there and lit up again
and took time to finish the joint, which owing to
its
high resin content
had considerately gone out the instant it hit the ashtray. Too soon, how
ever, like Reality marching into the room, flipping on the lights, taking
a gander, and going “Hrrumph!” it was time for the eleven-o’clock news,
taken up, as always and for Penny more and more annoyingly, by devel
opments in the Manson case, about to go to trial.

“Give it a rest, Bugliosi,” she snarled at the screen while the lead pros
ecutor was having his nightly couple of minutes with the cameras.

“Would
’ve
thought all this pretrial stuff d be right up your alley,” Doc said.

“It was, for a while. They let me get in on a couple of depositions, but
it’s too much like boys up in a tree house. The only part I enjoy anymore
is hearing how all these hippie chicks did everything Manson told them to do. That master-slave thing, you know,
it’s
kind of cute?”

“Oh yeah? you never told me you were into that, Penny, you mean all
this time we
could’ve
been—”

“With you? forget it, Doc.”

“What.”

“Well.
..
” Was that what they call a
mischievous gleam
in her eye? “You’re almost short enough. I guess. But, see, it isn’t only the hypnotic stare, Charlie’s big appeal is that he’s down there eyeball to eyeball with
the ladies he’s ordering around. It might be about fucking Daddy, but
the really perverse thrill is that Daddy’s only five foot two.”

“Wow man, well... I could work on that?”

“Keep me up to date, anyway.”

A promo came on for the late movie, which tonight happened to be
Ghidrah, the Three-Headed
Monster
(1964).

“Hey Penny, were you going in tomorrow?”

“Maybe around midday. Unless you have a better idea, I’m just going
to go crash, I think.”

“No wait a minute, here’s something you might really like.” He tried
to explain that this Japanese monster movie was actually a remake of the
classic chick flick
Roman Holiday
(1953), both movies featuring a stylish princess visiting another country who meets a working-class protag who becomes sweet on her, although, despite having some adventures together, the two at the end must part, but somewhere in the middle of
this review, Penny having slid gracefully to her knees and begun sucking
his cock, next thing either of them knew, there they were fucking again. Afterward, as they were sitting on the couch, the movie came on. Doc must have drifted away somewhere in the middle, but toward the end he
woke up to find Penny sniffling into a Kleenex, transfixed by the human
or romantic part of the plotline after all.