IVIV: The Feds

[John Bailey]

Doc walks Penny back to work at her request, which is really just an
excuse to hand him over to Special Agents Flatweed and Borderline.

Anyone with "flat" in their name, or "border" or "line" is bound to be
up to no good in a P novel. Not so sure about the weed though...

Did some googling and came across someone asking a dope forum what
"flat" weed refers to. Answers suggested that it's cheap, mass
produced marijuana packed into bricks. Not good quality. As one puts
it: "flat weed is a mass produced schwag weed usually seedy and low
quality..
they plantations that grow this "flat weed" will grow 100's some time
1000's of plants at a time and will stick the finished product in a
large vice and compact the shit out of it and cut them into the
quantity they're selling them in pounds or kilos..."

Like the vice reference.

Borderline was a 1950 film in which customs agents attempt to sort out
and capture a complex dope-smuggling ring in Mexico. Starred Fred
MacMurray (whose big noir moment was of course Double Indemnity) and
the bad guy was Raymond Burr (who's mentioned in Vineland).

Borderline also brings up borderline personality disorder, but I don't
see how BPD would be relevant here.

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"Gotta say I've always admired you guys, eight P.M. every Sunday
night, wow, I never miss an episode!" says Doc. He's either obviously
taking the piss or doing that fake "I'm just a dumb doper" routine.

What show is this referring to? "The F.B.I"? That's what I'm guessing,
and we get a ref to the show's lead character Lew Erskine shortly.
Fits in with Doc's frequent lament regarding the conditioning effect
of 60s/70s law enforcement TV.

In fact the first comment on the IMDB listing for FBI is a case in point:

"I swore I was going to grow up to work for the F.B.I. -- that's how
wonderful and influential this program was...

He had a convertible RED Mustang!!! He would travel the world, take
out the criminals...and then at the end cruise Washington, DC in a RED
CONVERTABLE MUSTANG!!! And...end up at his Washington, DC Brownstone!!
I mean, how cool of a job was THAT?!?!?! "

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Doc is pretty straight in this scene. Penny excuses herself to the
bathroom, but Doc knows "her gait when she had to piss, and this
wasn't it."

That's pretty amazing detective work. I doubt I'd ever make that kind
of observation.

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Doc takes "a second and a half to get spiritually prepared". Odd little phrase.

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"Come on, Larry, let's find us a cup of joe." Dialogue right out of a
TV script. And the feds start off by suggesting a nice legal drug they
can share. Doc wonders when he'll get to smoke a joint again.