Inherent Vice Chapter 1

Epigraph:
Under the paving-stones, the beach! - Graffito, Paris, 1968

She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn't seen her in over a year. Nobody had. Back then it was always sandals, bottom half of a flower-print bikini, faded Country Joe & 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?"

"Thinks he's hallucinating."

"Just the new package I guess."

They stood in the street light in 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.

"Need your help, Doc."

"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."

Okay, nothing romantic tonight. Bummer. But it still 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, and handed it to Shasta.

"There's this guy," she was saying.

There would be, but why get emotional? If he had a nickel for every time he'd heard a client start off this way, he could be over in Hawaii now, loaded day and night, digging the waves at Waimea, or better yet hiring someone to dig them for him... "Gentleman of the straightworld persuasion," he beamed.

"Okay, Doc. He's married."

"Some...money situation."

She shook back her 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--they're working together on some creepy little scheme."