IVIV (0) Excerpt

[Dave Monroe]

>From Inherent Vice
By Thomas Pynchon


   She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always
used to. Doc hadn't seen her for over a year. Nobody had. Back then it
was always sandals, bottom half of a flower-print bikini, faded
Country Joe and the Fish T-shirt. Tonight she was all in flatland
gear, hair a lot shorter than he remembered, looking just like she
swore she'd never look.
   "That you, Shasta? The packaging fooled me there for a minute."
   "Need your help, Doc."
   They stood in the streetlight through the kitchen window there'd
never been much point putting curtains over and listened to the
thumping of the surf from down the hill. Some nights, when the wind
was right, you could hear the surf all over town.
   Nobody was saying much. What was this? "So! You know I have an
office now? Just like a day job and everything?"
   "I looked in the phone book, almost went over there. But then I
thought, better for everybody if this looks like a secret rendezvous."
   OK, nothing romantic tonight. Bummer. But it might be a paying gig.
"Somebody's keeping a close eye?"
   "Just spent an hour on surface streets trying to make it look good."
   "How about a beer?" He went to the fridge, pulled two cans out of
the case he kept inside, handed one to Shasta.
   "There's this guy," she was saying.
   There would be. No point getting emotional. And if he had a nickel
for every time he'd heard a client start off this way, he would be
over in Hawaii now, loaded day and night, digging the waves at Waimea,
or better yet hiring somebody to dig them for him .... "Gentleman of
the straight-world persuasion," he beamed.
   "OK, Doc. He's married."
   "Some ... money situation."
   She shook back hair that wasn't there and raised her eyebrows so what.
   Groovy with Doc. "And the wife — she knows about you?"
   Shasta nodded. "But she's seeing somebody too. Only it isn't just
the usual number — they're working together on some creepy little
scheme."
   "To make off with hubby's fortune, yeah, I think I heard of that
happenin' once or twice around L.A. And ... you want me to do what
exactly?" He found the paper bag he'd brought his supper home in and
got busy pretending to scribble notes on it, because straight-chick
uniform, makeup supposed to look like no makeup or whatever, here came
that old well-known hard-on Shasta was always good for sooner or
later. Does it ever end, he wondered. Of course it does. It did.

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http://mavienocturne.blogspot.com/2008/11/un-extrait-du-nouveau-pynchon.html
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