Doc had seen Preserved under full sail only once before, during the acid trip that Vehi and Sortilège had put him on. Now, more or less on the natch, he noticed an interesting resemblance to the schooner in The Sea Wolf (1941), aboard which John Garfield is assaulted and in fact decked by Edward G. Robinson going, “Yeah! yeah I’m the Sea Wolf, see? I’m the boss on this ship, and what I say goes, yeah . . . ’cause nobody messes with the Sea Wolf, see—”
“Everything all right, Doc?”
“Oh. Was . . . I doing that out loud?”
They fell in astern and followed. Soon a pair of greenish blobs appeared on the radar, moving closer with each sweep, and Sauncho got on the radio. Some of the transmissions sounded like a Gordita Beach bar any night of the week.
“Your buddies from the Justice Department,” Doc guessed.
“Plus the Coast Guard.” Sauncho looked at the schooner for a while through the binoculars. “She’s seen us now. Pretty soon . . . yup. Some smoke. She’s switching over to diesel power. Well, that lets us out.”
Soon they were looking at the ass end or, as Sauncho liked to call it, fantail, of a Coast Guard cutter pursuing the Golden Fang at flank speed, and before long the DOJ vessel also had caught up with Sauncho and Doc. Young attorneys in amusing hats waved cans of beer and hollered remarks. Doc saw at least half a dozen cuties in bikinis scampering forward and aft. KHJ was on at top volume, playing Thunderclap Newman’s rousing revolutionary anthem “Something in the Air,” to which a number of DOJ passengers and guests were actually singing along, with every appearance of sincerity—though Doc wondered how many would have recognized revolution if it had come up and said howdy.
“Mind if I just kick back here?” Doc said. “Don’t suppose your law firm happens to keep any fishing gear aboard.”
“Actually, if you go look in that locker . . . They even sprang for a fathometer so they could track schools of fish.” Sauncho lit off the instrument and began to gaze at its display. After a while he began muttering and reaching for charts. “Something funny here, Doc. . . . According to this, look—there isn’t much out here in the way of a bottom, it’s all like hundreds of meters deep. But this fathometer—unless the electronics are fucked up—”
“Saunch, do you hear something?”
From ahead of them somewhere now came a rhythmic murmur which, if they were on land, could easily be taken for surf. But this far out at sea couldn’t possibly be.
“Something,” Sauncho said.
“Good.”
The sound grew louder, and Doc started to time the interval in his head. Unless he was nervous and counting too fast, it seemed to be around thirty seconds, which normally—which this wasn’t—suggested waves up to about that many feet high. By now the little craft was beginning to pitch around in the swell, which had become, you’d say, pronounced. Something was also happening to the light, as if the air ahead of them were thickening with unknown weather. Even with binoculars it was hard to keep the schooner in view.
“Your dreamboat there trying to lead us into something?” Doc hollered, not quite in panic.
The surf—if that’s what it was—had grown to a day-splitting roar. Caustic salt spray lashed at them, driving into their eyes. Sauncho throttled back the engine, screaming, “What the fuck?”
Doc had been on his way aft to vomit but decided to wait. Sauncho was pointing off the port bow in some agitation. There were no rocks visible, no shoreline, open ocean all around, but what they now beheld made the north shore of Oahu at its most majestic look like Santa Monica in August. Doc put the sets rolling in at them from the northwest at thirty and maybe even thirty-five feet from crest to trough—curling massively, flaring in the sun, breaking in repeated explosion.
“Can’t be Cortes Bank,” Sauncho squinting at his charts, “we haven’t come that far. But there’s nothing else around here, so what the hell is it?”
They both knew. It was St. Flip of Lawndale’s mythical break, also known to old-timers as Death’s Doorsill. And the schooner was headed straight into it.
Sauncho had been tracking her course with a yellow grease pencil on the radar screen. “They’re committing either suicide or barratry here, hard to say which—why don’t they turn?”
“Where’s the feds now?”
“Justice Department look like they’re hove to, but the Coast Guard is still trying to intercept.”
“That takes some balls.”
“It’s what they tell you when you join up—you have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.”
They were close enough now to see two, make it three, dark narrow shapes detach from the schooner, seem to hover a moment above the surface, then go roostertailing away, their engines for a short while louder even than the crashing surf. “Cigarette boats,” hollered Sauncho. “Five hundred HP, maybe a thousand, don’t matter, nobody’s about to engage in hot pursuit here.”
Doc watched the schooner through the smeared oceanlight. She kept fading in and out of the spray. It may have been the visibility, but she looked all at once older, more sea-beaten, more like the ship in his dream the other morning. The dream of Coy’s escape with his family to safety. Preserved.
“They’ve abandoned her,” Sauncho cried into the dimness and roar.
“Shit, man, I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be. At least they stopped the engines. We’ve just got to pray she doesn’t strand on whatever that is down there.” In the lulls between wavecrashes, he explained that if she could be brought back in, into some kind of safe receivership, and the owners didn’t come and claim her within a year and a day, then she was officially abandoned, and who the ownership would pass to then became a matter of all kinds of marine law Doc had trouble following.
Meantime the Coast Guard were putting a boarding party on the schooner, shortening sail, getting out trip lines and storm anchors to keep her head to the wind, rigging range and towing lights. According to radio traffic, an oceangoing tug was on the way.
“Good thing we came out,” Sauncho said.
“We didn’t do much.”
“Yeah, but suppose we hadn’t come out. There’d be only the government story then, and that old boat could kiss her transom good-bye.”
AT THE TERMINAL Island Coast Guard base, Sauncho had to go in the office and do some paperwork, and arrange for overnight moorage for the inboard-outboard, then he and Doc grabbed a lift with a carload of sailors heading up to Hollywood on liberty, who let them off at the Marina. At Linus’s Tavern they found Mercy just going off shift. “Never got to finish that Zombie,” Sauncho realized.
“You’re probably in a mood to celebrate,” Doc said, “but I should look in at the office, it’s been a while.”
“I know—I have to calm down, we shouldn’t jinx this, a lot can happen in a year and a day. Everybody starts coming out of the woodwork, multiple insurers, particular average claims, ex–old ladies, who knows what-all. But say there was a legal marine policy in force, allowing ownership to go back to the underwriter. . . .”
Hell, call it Doper’s Intuition. “You didn’t happen to take out a policy yourself, Saunch.”
Was it the light in here? Did somebody have to go run and call up the Pope to report a miraculous case of some lawyer actually blushing? “If there’s litigation, I’ll be in on it,” Sauncho admitted. “Although it’s more likely one of your lowlife millionaire friends will end up stealing her at auction.”
On some sentimental impulse, Doc went to hug him, and as usual Sauncho flinched. “Sorry. Hope it works out, man. That boat and you really do belong together.”
“Yep, like Shirley Temple and George Murphy.” Before anybody could stop him, Sauncho began singing “We Should Be Together,” from Little Miss Broadway (1938), actually doing a fair vocal impression of the curly-headed moppet. He got to his feet, as if abou
t to tap-dance, but by now Doc was pulling nervously at his sleeve.
“I think that’s your boss over there?”
It was indeed the intimidating C. C. Chatfield, in propria persona. Moreover, he was aiming meaningful looks Sauncho’s way. Sauncho stopped singing and waved.
“Didn’t know you were a Shirley Temple fan too, Smilax,” boomed C.C. across what, helpfully, wasn’t yet a quitting-time crowd. “When you’re done with your client there, come on over. I need a word with you about that MGM idea.”
“You didn’t,” said Doc.
“It was a class-action suit waiting to happen,” Sauncho protested. “If it isn’t us, it’ll be somebody else. And think of the potential. Every studio in town’s vulnerable. Warners! What if you could find enough pissed-off viewers who don’t want Laszlo and Ilsa to get on the airplane together? Or what if they want Mildred to strangle Veda at the end, like she does in the book? A-and—”
“I’ll call you soon,” Doc as carefully as possible patting Sauncho on the shoulder and making his way out of Linus’s.
THINGS WERE WINDING down for the day at Dr. Tubeside’s energy shop. Petunia, mighty fetching today in pale fuchsia, was murmuring intimately with a longhaired older gent in very dark wraparound shades. “Oh, Doc, I don’t think you’ve ever met my husband? This is Dizzy. Honey, this is Doc, that I’ve told you about?”
“My brother,” Dizzy slowly advancing a hand with bass-player calluses on the fingers, and the next thing Doc knew, they were deep in a complex handshake, including elements from Vietnam, a number of state prisons, and fraternal organizations that post their weekly meeting times at the city limits.
Dr. Tubeside joined them from the back office and handed Petunia a large prescription bottle. “If you’re really going ahead with this vegetarian-diet thing,” punctuating this by rattling the pills in the bottle, “you’ll need a supplement, Petun-ya.”
“We have news, Doc,” said Petunia. “Pregno,” said Dizzy.
Doc did a quick radiance check on her and felt a stupid smile taking over his face. “Well what do you know. I thought that glow in the room was just some flashback I was havin. Congratulations, you guys, that’s wonderful.”
“Except for this nutcase here,” said Petunia, “who thinks now he has to drive me to and from work. Just what I need, a freaked-out chauffeur. Take your shades off, darling, let everybody see them pretty eyeballs pinwheelin around.”
Doc headed upstairs. “Put the lights out and lock up!” hollered Dr. Tubeside.
“I never forget,” replied Doc. An old routine.
There was a pile of mail fanned out on the other side of the doorsill, most of it pizza-delivery menus, but one sumptuous envelope, embossed in gold, caught Doc’s eye. He recognized the fake-Arabic typeface of the Kismet Lounge and Casino, North Las Vegas.
The first thing he saw inside the envelope was a check for ten thousand dollars. It looked real enough. “After exhaustive review,” said the cover letter, “in which the best—and incidentally the most expensive—legal, psychological, and religious experts have been consulted, it has been determined that Michael Zachary Wolfmann was in fact abducted against his will, and, like the space aliens of nearby Area 51, his abductors remain inaccessible to ordinary legal remedy. The amount enclosed reflects our quoted odds of 100 to 1, though the betting lines at certain other casinos to the south of here would have provided a vastly more lucrative payoff. ‘Tough luck, high roller!’
“Look for further mailings, including your exclusive invitation to the Grand Opening of the new and totally reconceptualized Kismet Lounge and Casino, sometime in the spring of 1972. We look forward to seeing you again. Thank you for your continued interest in the Kismet.
“Cordially, Fabian P. Fazzo, Chief Operating Officer, Kiscorp.”
The Princess phone rang, and it was Hope Harlingen. “God bless you, Doc.”
“I sneeze or something?”
“Seriously.”
“Really. Like sometimes I forget if I did or not? and then I have to ask. It’s embarrassing.”
There was a short silence. “Rewinding,” she said. “Was that you who slid those passes under my patio door?”
“No. What passes?”
Seems somebody had given her and Amethyst backstage passes to the massive Surfadelic Freak-In up at Will Rogers Park last night.
“Oh wow, did I miss that? My cousin’s band, Beer? was supposed to open for the Boards.”
“Beer? Really? Doc, they were so far out? like they’re the next Boards.”
“Scott will be happy to hear that. I don’t know if I am. Did Coy play?”
“He’s back, Doc, he’s really alive and back and I’ve been tripping for twenty-four hours now, and I don’t know what to believe.”
“How’s old what’s-her-name doin?”
“She’s still asleep. I’d say she’s been a little spaced. I don’t think she’s really made any connections about Coy yet. But the one thing at the concert she keeps going back to is when Coy picked up a baritone sax, took the mike off the mike stand, and put it down in the bell of the sax and started just blasting. She loved that. He scored all kinds of points with that.”
“So . . . you guys are . . .”
“Oh, we’ll see.”
“Groovy.”
“We’re also going to Hawaii next weekend.”
Doc remembered his dream. “You takin a boat?”
“Flying over on Kahuna Airlines. Coy got tickets someplace.”
“Try not to check too many bags.”
“He just came in. Here, talk to him. We love you.”
There were sounds, annoying after a while, of prolonged kissing, and Coy finally said, “I’m officially off of everybody’s payroll, man. Burke Stodger called in person to tell me. Did you get to the concert last night?”
“No, and my cousin Scott’s gonna be so pissed off. I just forgot. Heard you really kicked ass.”
“I got some long solos on ‘Steamer Lane’ and ‘Hair Ball’ and the Dick Dale salute.”
“And I guess your daughter had fun.”
“Man, she’s . . .” And he just went silent. Doc listened to him breathing for a while. “You know what the Indians say. You saved my life, now you’ve got to—”
“Yeah, yeah, some hippie made that up.” These people, man. Don’t know nothin. “You saved your life, Coy. Now you get to live it.” He hung up.
TWENTY-ONE
WHEN IT BECAME TRAGICALLY OBVIOUS TOO LATE IN THE FOURTH quarter that the Lakers would lose Game 7 of the finals to the Knicks, Doc began thinking about who he’d bet on it with, and how much, and then the ten thousand dollars, and then everybody else he owed money to, which he now remembered included Fritz, so he popped off the tube and, deciding to take his disappointment out on the road, got in the Dart and headed up to Santa Monica. By the time he arrived at Gotcha!, there were still one or two lights on inside. He went around the back and tapped at the door. After a while it opened an inch, and a kid with very short hair peered out. Had to be Sparky.
Which it was. “Fritz said you’d be by sometime. Come on in.”
The computer room was hopping. All the tape reels were spinning back and forth, and there were now twice as many computer screens as Doc remembered, all lit up, plus at least a dozen TV sets on, each tuned to a different channel. A sound system that must have been looted from a movie theater was playing “Help Me, Rhonda,” and the beat-up old percolator in the corner had been replaced with some gigantic Italian coffee machine covered with pipes and valve handles and gauges and enough chrome that you could drive it slowly along any boulevard in East L.A. and fit right in. Sparky went to a keyboard and typed in some series of commands in a peculiar code Doc tried to read but couldn’t, and the coffee machine started to—well not breathe, exactly, but
begin to route steam and hot water around in a purposeful way.
“Where’s Fritz got to?”
“Down in the desert someplace, chasing deadbeats. As usual.”
Doc took a joint out of his shirt pocket. “Mind if I, uh . . .”
“Sure,” just this side of sociable.
“You don’t smoke?”
Sparky shrugged. “It’s harder for me to work. Or maybe I’m just one of those people shouldn’t be goin in for drugs.”
“Fritz said after he’d been on the network for a while it felt like doing psychedelics.”
“He also thinks the ARPAnet has taken his soul.”
Doc thought about this. “Has it?”
Sparky frowned off into the distance. “The system has no use for souls. Not how it works at all. Even this thing about going into other people’s lives? it isn’t like some Eastern trip of absorbing into a collective consciousness. It’s only finding stuff out that somebody else didn’t think you were going to. And it’s moving so fast, like the more we know, the more we know, you can almost see it change one day to the next. Why I try to work late. Not so much of a shock next morning.”
“Wow. Guess I better learn something about this or I’ll be obsolete.”
“It’s all pretty clunky,” waving around the room. “Down here in real life, compared to what you see in spy movies and TV, we’re still nowhere near that speed or capacity, even the infrared and night vision they’re using in Vietnam is still a long way from X-Ray Specs, but it all moves exponentially, and someday everybody’s gonna wake up to find they’re under surveillance they can’t escape. Skips won’t be able to skip no more, maybe by then there’ll be no place to skip to.”
The coffee machine burst into a loud synthesized vocal of “Volare.”
“Fritz programmed that in. I might have gone more for ‘Java Jive.’”
Inherent Vice Page 38