

In both cases, Coy’s appearance is contained within one sustained shot. In the first, soon after Doc has been hired by Coy’s wife, Hope, to investigate his whereabouts, Coy emerges on a fog-cloaked pier to ask that Doc keep an eye on Hope and their daughter, Amethyst, and provides a minor clue as to the significance of the words “Golden Fang.” In the second, Doc finds Coy at a house party, where the anxious and paranoid Coy bemoans his self-imposed alienation from his family and urges Doc to find Shasta before she is enmeshed in the same morass that he is. Across the nearly two-and-a-half-hour sprawl of Inherent Vice, Coy Harlingen, surf rock saxophonist and heroin addict turned CIA asset, appears in two centerpiece scenes.
