roots, ” Scott explained, “ my mom hates the San Joaquin, but I don ’ t know, man, every time I go up there, gigs at the Chowchilia Kiwanis or whatever, there ’ s this strange feeling, like I used to live there.... ”
“ You did live there, ” Doc pointed out.
“ No, like in another life, man? ”
Doc had considerately brought along a shirtpocket full of prerolled Panamanian, and soon everybody was wandering around drinking cans of supermarket soda and eating homemade peanut butter cookies.
“ Anything on the rock n ’ roll grapevine, ” Doc inquired, “ about a surf saxophone player named Coy Harlingen who used to play for the Boards? ”
“ OD ’ d, right? ” said Lefty the bass player.
“ Allegedly OD ’ d, ” Scott said, “ but there ’ s also been a strange rumor going around, is that he really survived? they brought him back in some Beverly Hills emergency room, but everybody kept it quiet, some say they paid him to go on pretending he ’ s dead, and he ’ s out there some place right now walkin among us in disguise, like with different hair and so forth— ”
“ Why would anybody go to that much trouble? ” Doc said.
“ Yeah, ” said Lefty, “ not like he ’ s some hot-lookin singer every chick wants to ball, some kick-ass guitarist who ’ ll change the business forever, just another surf-band sax player, easy to replace. ” So much for Coy. As for the Boards, they ’ d been making piles of money lately, living all together in a house up in Topanga Canyon, with the usual entourage— groupies, producers, in-laws, pilgrims who ’ d journeyed long and hard enough to be taken in as part of the household. The resurrected Coy Harlingen was darkly rumored to be one of these, though nobody recognized anyone there who might be him. Maybe some thought they did, but all was fuzzed, as if by the fog of dope.
Later, as Doc was getting in his car, Aunt Reet stuck her head out the bungalow office window and hollered at him.
“ So you had to go talk to Mickey Wolfmann. Nice timing. What did I tell you, wise-ass? Was I right? ”
“ I forget, ” Doc said.
THREE
THE COP WHO ’ D CALLED HOPE HARLINGEN WITH THE NEWS ABOUT Coys overdose, Pat Dubonnet, was now top kahuna at the Gordita Beach station. Doc located behind his ear a bent Kool, lit up, and considered aspects of the situation. Pat and Bigfoot had come up at around the same time, both having begun their careers in the South Bay, practically on Doc ’ s own stretch of beach, back in the era of the Surfer-Lowrider Wars. Pat had stayed, but Bigfoot, quickly picking up a rep for stick-assisted pacification solid enough to look to the folks down town like an obvious draft choice, had moved on. Doc had been around long enough now to watch a few of these hotshots come and go, and to note that they always left behind them some residue of history. He also knew that Pat had more or less fucking hated Bigfoot for years. “ Time for a visit, ” he decided, “ to Hippiephobia Central. ” He drove past the Gordita Beach station house twice before he recognized it. The place had been radically transformed, courtesy of federal anti-drug money, from a pierside booking desk with a two-coil hot plate and a jar of instant coffee into a palatial cop ’s paradise featuring locomotive-size espresso machines, it’s own mini-jail, a motor pool full of rolling weaponry that would otherwise be in Vietnam, and a kitchen with a crew of pastry chefs working around the clock.
After threading his way among a c rew of trainees chirping around the place squirting mist at the dwarf palms, Wandering Jews, and dief fenbachias, Doc located Pat Dubonnet in his office, and reaching into his fringe shoulder bag, withdrew a foil-wrapped object about a foot long. “ Here you go Pat, expressly for you. ” Before he could blink, the detective had grabbed, unwrapped, and somehow ingested at least half of the lengthy wiener and bun within, which
“ You did live there, ” Doc pointed out.
“ No, like in another life, man? ”
Doc had considerately brought along a shirtpocket full of prerolled Panamanian, and soon everybody was wandering around drinking cans of supermarket soda and eating homemade peanut butter cookies.
“ Anything on the rock n ’ roll grapevine, ” Doc inquired, “ about a surf saxophone player named Coy Harlingen who used to play for the Boards? ”
“ OD ’ d, right? ” said Lefty the bass player.
“ Allegedly OD ’ d, ” Scott said, “ but there ’ s also been a strange rumor going around, is that he really survived? they brought him back in some Beverly Hills emergency room, but everybody kept it quiet, some say they paid him to go on pretending he ’ s dead, and he ’ s out there some place right now walkin among us in disguise, like with different hair and so forth— ”
“ Why would anybody go to that much trouble? ” Doc said.
“ Yeah, ” said Lefty, “ not like he ’ s some hot-lookin singer every chick wants to ball, some kick-ass guitarist who ’ ll change the business forever, just another surf-band sax player, easy to replace. ” So much for Coy. As for the Boards, they ’ d been making piles of money lately, living all together in a house up in Topanga Canyon, with the usual entourage— groupies, producers, in-laws, pilgrims who ’ d journeyed long and hard enough to be taken in as part of the household. The resurrected Coy Harlingen was darkly rumored to be one of these, though nobody recognized anyone there who might be him. Maybe some thought they did, but all was fuzzed, as if by the fog of dope.
Later, as Doc was getting in his car, Aunt Reet stuck her head out the bungalow office window and hollered at him.
“ So you had to go talk to Mickey Wolfmann. Nice timing. What did I tell you, wise-ass? Was I right? ”
“ I forget, ” Doc said.
THREE
THE COP WHO ’ D CALLED HOPE HARLINGEN WITH THE NEWS ABOUT Coys overdose, Pat Dubonnet, was now top kahuna at the Gordita Beach station. Doc located behind his ear a bent Kool, lit up, and considered aspects of the situation. Pat and Bigfoot had come up at around the same time, both having begun their careers in the South Bay, practically on Doc ’ s own stretch of beach, back in the era of the Surfer-Lowrider Wars. Pat had stayed, but Bigfoot, quickly picking up a rep for stick-assisted pacification solid enough to look to the folks down town like an obvious draft choice, had moved on. Doc had been around long enough now to watch a few of these hotshots come and go, and to note that they always left behind them some residue of history. He also knew that Pat had more or less fucking hated Bigfoot for years. “ Time for a visit, ” he decided, “ to Hippiephobia Central. ” He drove past the Gordita Beach station house twice before he recognized it. The place had been radically transformed, courtesy of federal anti-drug money, from a pierside booking desk with a two-coil hot plate and a jar of instant coffee into a palatial cop ’s paradise featuring locomotive-size espresso machines, it’s own mini-jail, a motor pool full of rolling weaponry that would otherwise be in Vietnam, and a kitchen with a crew of pastry chefs working around the clock.
After threading his way among a c rew of trainees chirping around the place squirting mist at the dwarf palms, Wandering Jews, and dief fenbachias, Doc located Pat Dubonnet in his office, and reaching into his fringe shoulder bag, withdrew a foil-wrapped object about a foot long. “ Here you go Pat, expressly for you. ” Before he could blink, the detective had grabbed, unwrapped, and somehow ingested at least half of the lengthy wiener and bun within, which
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