“
Long as it ain
’
t the capital of South Dakota, sure.
”
“
This mutual friend you and Coy have. Had. Is she, like, some kind of ex, or were you just dating, or
...
?
”
Who did Doc have to talk to about any of this that wasn
’
t stoned, jealous, or a cop? Amethyst had found a cup of juice waiting in the fridge and climbed up onto the couch next to him, looking 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 to his
...
his disappearance. I thought, maybe
somebody
’
s idea of a payoff? Local 47, some insurance policy I didn
’
t
know about. I mean, you wouldn
’
t expect it to be anonymous, would
you. But here
’
s this mute set of figures in a monthly statement and some obviously jive-ass story the bank came up with to explain it.
”
Doc wrote the date of the deposit on a match cover and said,
“
Is there
a picture of Coy you could spare?
”
Was there. She pulled out a liquor-store box full of Polaroids—Coy
sleeping, Coy with the baby, Coy cooking heroin, Coy tying off, Coy
shooting up, Coy out under a shade tree pretending to cower away from
a 454 Big Block Chev engine, Coy and Hope out on the beach, sitting
in a pizza joint playing tug-of-war with the last slice, walking down
Hollywood Boulevard just as the streetlight was coming on.
“
Help yourself. I
should’ve
probably thrown
’em
all away a long time
ago. Detach, right? move on, hell, I
’
m always lecturing everybody else to.
But Ammie likes them, likes it when we look through them, I
’
ll tell her a little about each one, and she should have something anyhow, when she
gets older, to remind her. Don
’
t you think?
”
“
Me?
”
Doc remembered how Polaroids have no negatives and the life
of the prints is limited. These, he noticed, were already beginning to
shift color and fade.
“
Sure, sometimes I
’
d like to have one for every min
ute. Rent, like, a warehouse?
”
She gave him one of those social-worker looks.
“
Well, that
...
might
be a little ... Are you seeing, like, a therapist?
”
“
She
’
s more of a deputy DA, I guess.
”
“
No, I meant.
..
”
She
’
d picked up a handful of photos and was pre
tending to arrange them in some meaningful way, the gin hand of her
brief time with Coy.
“
Even if you don
’
t know what you
’
ve got,
”
she said
slowly after a while,
“
act sometimes like you do. She
’
ll appreciate that,
and even you
’
ll be better for it.
”
Doc nodded and picked up the first picture to hand, a shot of Coy
holding his tenor, maybe taken during a gig, the lighting inexpensive,
out-of-focus elbows and shirtsleeves and guitar necks poking in at the
edges.
“
Okay if I take this one?
”
Without looking at it, Hope said,
“
Sure.
”
Amethyst came running in, revved up.
“
Here I am,
”
she sang,
“
to
save the day!
”
later in the afternoon
Doc drifted up to the Tree Section to his
Aunt Reet
’s
place, where he found his cousin Scott Oof out in the garage
with his band. Scott had been playing with a local group known as the
Corvairs, till half of them decided to join the northward migration of those years up to Humboldt, Vineland, and Del Norte. Scott, to whom
redwoods were an alien species, and Elfmont, the drummer, decided to
stay on at the beach and went around sticking up ads on different school
bulletin boards till they
’
d assembled this new band, which they called
Beer. Playing mostly covers in bar gigs around the area, Beer were now
actually almost paying their rent month to month.
At the moment they were rehearsing, or today actually trying to learn
the correct notes to, the theme from the TV western
The Big Valley,
which had recently gone into reruns. The shelves of the garage were lined
with jars of purple pork rind, sure-fire bait for the depraved reservoir bass
Aunt Reet went off periodically to Mexico after and came back with
the trunk full of. Doc wasn
’
t sure, but in the dimness the stuff always
appeared to be glowing.
Beer
’
s front man Huey was singing, while the rhythm guitar and bass
filled in behind him,
“
The ...
Big ...
Valley!
[
Guitarfill
]
The
BIG
Valley!
[
Same guitarfill
]
just
How big, is it, well go, visit sometime
...
Ride all night, till,
Dawn-and-what will
you find?
The Big Valley! Yes! Even more-of— the
Big Valley!
no
place to score in— the
Big Valley! big? that
’
s for sure, it
’
s— the
BigVal-ley!
“
It
’
s like my 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.