Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

all set for a grown-up to tell her a story. Hope poured more coffee. There was too much kindness in the room all of a sudden. Doc had learned only a thing or two in the business, but one of them was, kindness without a price tag came along only rarely, and when it did usually it was too precious to accept, being too easy, for Doc anyway, to abuse, which he was bound to. So he settled for, “ Well, sort of an ex, but now she ’ s a cli ent, too. I promised her I ’ d do something, and I waited too long, so the party she ended up with, scumbag developer and all, could be in some bad trouble now, and if I ’ d just taken care of business— ”
    “ As one who ’ s been down that particular exit ramp, ” Hope advised, “ you can only cruise the boulevards of regret so far, and then you ’ ve got to get back up onto the freeway again. ”
    “ Thing is, though, now Shasta ’ s disappeared too. And if she ’ s in trouble— ”
    Amethyst, realizing this wasn ’ t going to be her idea of entertainment, climbed down off the couch, threw Doc a reproachful look over her juice, and went off into the next room to watch the tube. Soon they could hear Mighty Mouse ’ s dramatic treble.
    “ If you ’ re on this other case, ” Hope said, “ busy with it or something, I understand. But the reason I wanted to talk to you, ” and Doc saw it a half second before she said it, “ is I don ’ t think Coy is really dead. ”
    Doc nodded, more to himself than to Hope. According to Sorti lege, these were perilous times, astrologically speaking, for dopers— especially those of high-school age, who ’ d been born, most of them, under a ninety-degree aspect, the unluckiest angle possible, between Neptune, the dopers ’ planet, and Uranus, the planet of rude surprises. Doc had known it to happen that those left behind would refuse to believe that people they loved or even only took the same classes with were really dead. They came up with all kinds of alternate stories so it wouldn ’ t have to be true. Some ex-old lady had hit town, and they ’ d run away together. The emergency room had mixed them up with somebody else, the way maternity wards switched babies around, and they were still on some intensive-care ward under another name. It was a particular kind of disconnected denial, and Doc figured he ’ d seen enough by now to recognize it. Whatever Hope was showing him here wasn ’ t it.
    “ Did you ID the body? ” He figured he could ask.
    “ No. That was one peculiar thing. Whoever called said somebody from the band already did it. ”
    “ I think it’s supposed to be next of kin. Who called you? ”
    She had her diary from that period, and she ’ d remembered to write it down. “ Lieutenant Dubonnet. ”
    “ Oh yeah, Pat Dubonnet, we ’ ve transacted one or two pieces of business. ”
    “ Sounds like he ran you in. ”
    “ Not to mention over. ” She was giving him one of those looks. “ Sure, I had this hippie phase. Everything I really did, I got away with, and nothin they picked me up on was ever my doing, because the only description they had was Caucasian male, long hair, beard, multicolored clothing, bare feet, so forth. ”
    “ Just like the one of Coy they read me over the phone. It could’ve been a thousand people. ”
    “ I ’ ll go talk to Pat. He might know something. ”
    “ There ’ s this other thing that happened. Look. ” She brought out an old bank statement from shortly after Coy ’ s alleged overdose, for her account at the local Bank of America, and pointed to a credit.
    “ Interesting sum. ”
    “ I called, I went in and talked to vice presidents, and everybody insisted it was correct. ‘ Maybe you lost the deposit slip, did the math wrong. ’ Ordinarily don ’ t look a gift horse, you know, but this was creepy. They kept using exactly the same phrases, over and over, I mean, talk about denial? ”
    “ You think it was something to do with Coy? ”
    “ It showed up so close