Free Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

somebody brought up this topic. If Mickey was currently being held against his will in some private nuthouse, then Docs immediate chore would be to try and find out which one. He called the number Shasta had given him, and the little woman herself picked up.
    a I know it’s awkward to be talking business right now, Mrs. Wolf mann, but unfortunately time is a factor here. ”
    “ This wouldn ’ t be another creditor inquiry, would it, there ’ve been an astonishing number already. I ’ m referring them to our attorney, do you have his number? ” Some kind of English smokers voice, it seemed to Doc, at the low end of the register and unspecifiably decadent.
    “ Actually, it’s our firm who owe your husband some money. As were talking in the mid—six figures, we felt we should bring it to your atten tion. ” He waited half a subvocalized bar of “ The Great Pretender. ” “ Mrs. Wolfmann? ”
    “ I may have a few minutes free around noon, ” she said. “ Whom did you say you represented? ”
    “ Modern Institute for Cognitive Repatterning and Overhaul, ” Doc said. “ MICRO for short, we’re a private clinic out near Hacienda Heights, specializing in the repair of stressed personalities. ”
    “ Ordinarily I review all of Michael ’ s larger disbursements, and I must confess, Mr.—is it Sportello?—that I am unfamiliar with any dealings he may have had with you. ’’
    Doc ’s nose had begun to run, a sure sign that he was onto something here. “ Perhaps, given the sum in question, it might be easier after all to work through your attorney. ... ”
    It took her a tenth of a second to calculate how much of a shark-bite out of the surfboard that might involve. “ Not at all, Mr. Sportello. Perhaps it ’s only your voice. .. but you may consider me officially intrigued. ”
    In a former en suite broom closet at the office, Doc had assembled a collection of disguises. He decided today on a double-breasted velour suit from Zeidler & Zeidler, and found a short-hair wig that almost matched the suit. He considered a glue-on mustache but figured simpler would be better—switched his sandals for standard-issue loafers and put on a tie narrower and less colorful than cur rently fashionable, hoping Mrs. Wolfmann would read this as pathetically unhip. Looking in the mirror, he almost recognized himself. Groovy. He considered lighting a joint but resisted the impulse.
    At the print shop down the street, his friend Jake, used to rush orders, ran him off a couple-three busine ss cards with the legend MICRO— Reconfiguring Southland Brains since 1966. Larry Sportello, Licensed Associate , which was true enough, long as you meant a Cali fornia driver ’s license.
    On the Coast Highway about halfway to the Wolfmann residence, the Bonzo Dog Band cover of “ Bang Bang ” came on from KRLA in Pasadena, and Doc cranked up the Vibrasonic. As he moved up into the hills, the reception began to fade, so he drove slower, but eventually lost the signal. Before long he found himself on a sunny street somewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains , parked near a house with high stucco walls, over which flowers of some exotic creeper poured in a flame-colored cascade. Doc thought he spotted somebody looking down at him from one of the openings of a Mission-style loggia running the length of the top floor. Heat of some kind, a sniper no doubt, though federal or local, who knew?
    A presentable young Chicana in jeans and an old SC sweatshirt answered the door and checked him out with dramatically made-up eyes. “ She ’ s hanging by the pool with all the police and them. Come on upstairs. ”
    It was a reverse floor plan, with bedrooms on the entrance level and then upstairs the kitchen, maybe more than one, and various entertainment areas. The house should have been full of law enforcement. Instead the boys from Protect and Serve had set up a command post at the pool cabana, somewhere out in back. Like getting in some last-minute