IVIV (11) opening talk

[Clément Lévy]

Hi there, fellows, I'm hosting chapter 11 for a week. I hope to feed  
the list and my guest with as many comments, remarks, and questions  
as possible.
As an intro, I would like to recall a few easy links with what we've  
been told earlier in the novel.

In chapter 9, Doc met Boris Spivey, one of Mickey Wolfmann's Aryan  
Brotherhood bodyguards. At the end of chapter 11, Doc will meet  
another witness of some importance.

In chapter 10, interviewing a pimp named Jason Velveeta (did anybody  
notice velvet painting mentioned earlier in the novel, p. 6, on the  
streets, on sunday mornings? could his name be related to these  
"window[s] to look out"?), and learns that the Golden Fang is an  
Indochinese heroin cartel (and not the boat anymore, or both?). In  
chapter 11, Doc will remember a place where he went to "score" and he  
will try to go there again for a strange reason. But this is the  
place he will find the office of Golden Fang Enterprise! aren't we on  
something great?

As he heard about Sledge Poteet, an ex-client, in chapter 1, p. 15,  
he will actually meet in chapter 11 Japonica Fenway, a girl he looked  
for on his "first paying gig as a licensed private eye".

Like in chapter 9, there will be a dangerous ride, not because Doc is  
trying to escape an angry follower (Coy? the Boards?), but because  
the driver, Japonica, seems out of her mind, which the police quickly  
notice.

We read in this chapter many cars' makers and models' names (as  
before), but Doc soon cannot use his Dart. He will get some very  
valuable info when he'll pick it up in Beverly Hills at the end of  
this chapter.

Only one song here of which the title is mentioned. Why is there so  
little music in chapter 11?

In this chapter Doc will find information the greek way and many  
things will seem to connect together.

After all, the chapter 11 is in somehow in the middle of the novel  
(21 chapters as a whole, 369 pages: it makes the very heart of the  
book between pp. 184 and 185, right at the end of chapter 11).

'Tis all for now. Clement