Inherent Vice Read Online Free PDF Page A

painful lump he found on his head when at length he awoke. Faster, anyhow, than the staff on Medical Center can say “ subdural hematoma, ” Doc dug how the unhip Muzak was silent, plus no Jade, no Bambi, and he was lying on the cement floor of a space he didn ’ t recognize, though the same could not be said for what he now ID ’ d, far overhead, like a bad-luck planet in today ’ s horoscope, as the evilly twinkling face of Detective Lieutenant Bigfoot Bjornsen, LAPD.
    “ congratulations, hippie scum, ” Bigfoot greeted Doc in his all-too-familiar 30-weight voice, “ and welcome to a world of inconvenience. Yes, this time it appears you have finally managed to stumble into something too real and deep to hallucinate your worthless hippie ass out of. ” He was holding, and now and then taking bites from, his trademark chocolate-covered frozen banana.
    “ Howdy, Bigfoot. Can I have a bite? ”
    “ Sure can, but you ’ ll have to wait, we left the rottweiler back at the station. ”
    “ No rush. And ... and where are we at the moment, again? ”
    “ At Channel View Estates, on a future homesite where elements of some wholesome family will quite soon be gathering night after night, to gaze tubeward, gobble their nutritious snacks, perhaps after the kids are in bed even attempt some procreational foreplay, little appreciating that once, on this very spot, an infamous perpetrator lay in a drugged stupor, babbling incoherently at the homicide detective, since risen to eminence, who apprehended him. ”
    They were still within sight of the front gate. Through a maze of stapled-together framing, Doc made out in the afternoon light a blurry vista of streets full of newly poured foundations awaiting houses to go on top of them, trenches for sewer and utility lines, sawhorse barricades with lights blinking even in the daytime, precast storm drains, piles of fill, bulldozers and backhoes.
    “ Without wishing to seem impatient, ” the Lieutenant continued, “ any time you feel you ’ d like to join us, we would so like to chat. ” Uniformed toadies crept about, chuckling in appreciation.
    “ Bigfoot, I don ’ t know what happened. Last I recall I was in that massage parlor over there? Asian chick named Jade? and her Anglo friend Bambi? ”
    “ Wishful figments of a brain pickled in cannabis fumes, no doubt, ” theorized Detective Bjornsen.
    “ But, like, I didn ’ t do it? Whatever it is? ”
    “ Sure. ” Bigfoot stared, snacking amusedly on his frozen banana, as Doc went through the wearisome chore of getting vertical again, followed by details to be worked out such as remaining that way, trying to walk, so forth. Which was about when he caught sight of a medical examiner ’ s crew with a bloodstreaked human body supine on a gurney, settled into itself like an uncooked holiday turkey, face covered with a cheap cop-issue blanket. Things kept falling out of it’s pants pockets. Cops had to go scramble in the dirt to retrieve them. Doc found himself freaking out, in terms of his stomach and whatever.
    Bigfoot Bjornsen smirked. “ Yes, I can almost pity your civilian distress—though if you had been more of a man and less of a ball-less hippie draft dodger, who knows, you might have seen enough over in the ‘ Nam to share even my own sense of professional ennui at the sight of one more, what we call, stiff, to be dealt with. ”
    “ Who is it? ” Doc nodding at the corpse.
    “ Was, Sportello. Here on Earth we say was. ’ Me et Glen Charlock whom you were asking for by name only hours ago, witnesses will swear to that. Forgetful dope fiends should be more cautious about whom they choose to act out their wacko fantasies upon. Furthermore, on the face of it, you have chosen to ice a personal bodyguard of the rather well-connected Mickey Wolfmann. Name ring a bell? or in your case shake a tambourine? Ah, but here ’ s our ride. ”
    “Hey —my car ... ”
    “ Like it’s owner, well on the way to