Inspired by the novel Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. I would recommend you watch the trailer of the film adaptation of the same name (if you don't know what I'm talking about), just to get a feel for what I'm going for.

Disclaimer: The characters, places and (some of the) ideas are not mine. Most belong to Suzanne Collins, and the idea comes from Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (and director, Paul Thomas Anderson).

Chapter 1 – Old Friends & Older Ties

The sun was setting over the bay and the pink and orange hews cast majestic light over the contours of Glimmer's face. If it weren't for the free beer and the live music in Abernathy's bar tonight, Gale sure as hell wouldn't be meeting her. He would most likely be at home, lying on his couch, a joint between his lips listening to re-runs of the Caesar Flickerman show as he stared up at the rotting ceiling of his house.

Glimmer had asked him to come out for a drink claiming she had work for him. Work being work, and Gale, being in need of work, had agreed to meet her with the condition that she buy him a beer. Fuck, he might even get her in bed tonight if he played his cards right.

She sat across from him, her finger circling the top of her beer bottle. Her beaded necklace rested between her breasts, with her loose white vest making it evident that she wore no bra. Her long blonde hair reached her waist and her sun kissed skin looked edible.

"Have you heard of Coriolanus Snow?" She began.

Gale took a sip of his beer and rubbed the beard on his chin.

"The oil tycoon?" he asked.

She nodded her head, "I know a secret about him."

He watched her nibble on her lip, waiting for her to elaborate.

"Word on the street is he's selling out by the Old Arena. Got this gang called the Peacekeeper Brotherhood – some Capitol supremacist dudes - playing bodyguards. Feds can't get near him."

Gale watched as the light in Glimmer's eyes started to fade, her mind obviously going to a darker place. "You remember Cato Sullivan, right? From District 2?" She asked, her voice going quiet.

Cato had been in Gale's class when they went to school out in District 3. They had run track together. That is until Cato turned into an asshole and Gale's life had turned upside down. Last Gale had heard of him, Cato had been off to work at some high paying accounting firm. How he had anything to do with Coriolanus Snow stumped him.

"Yeah, I remember him." Gale shrugged, "What about it?"

"I was dating him a year back, then we broke it off. He was always working. Work, work, work. I told him his job was too demanding, he said I was too demanding. Anyway," Glimmer sighed. "He's missing."

"You think he's working for Snow?"

Glimmer looked shocked, and shook her head. "No, I think he's been kidnapped. Can you find him?"

Confused, Gale motioned for her to explain, "You've got to give me more than that. And what's this secret that you know?"

"He was contacted by one of Snow's guys to do his accounts. Probably got sucked up into it. Anyway, I stopped by his office during the week – I had been contemplating meeting up with him again," she blushed then, "walked into his office and found one of his old work mate's getting sucked off. After Marvel cleaned himself up, he told me that Cato had left the firm; that he'd been gone a month and no one had heard from him."

"Did they contact the police?"

"Well that's what I said!" she continued, "He said that Cato had sent a letter in a month ago saying he quit, and that was the last they heard of him."

"Do you have the letter?"

"No."

Gale rubbed his beard again, thinking the whole situation over. It made no goddamn sense. "I don't get how you think he's been kidnapped. Sounds like he's run off to the fuckin' Capitol with someone's cash"

"I know it doesn't add up, but I have this feeling." She clutched at her chest, drawing Gale's attention to her breasts.

"Will you at least give it a shot?" she asked, "If it leads no where, I'll still pay you."

Glimmer sighed, and for the first time Gale saw her as a truly desperate woman. She must be really hung up on Cato.

So he pursed his lips and shrugged. "Sure," he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his notepad. "Give me some names."

"Start with Marvel James, that's the guy I spoke to. Cato was always running around with him."

Gale scribbled the names down. "And the secret?"

Glimmer leaned in close: her hand now resting on top of Gale's, and her breast almost grazed his forearm. She whispered in his ear.

"Beware of the cornucopia. "

"What the fuck is a cornucopia?" Gale muttered, dragging on his joint. What a shit secret that was.

He let the dope take over and lay back on his beat up couch. Time passed by and he stared at the painting his sister had sent him three months ago for his thirty-second birthday. Gale didn't speak to his family, or more accurately, they didn't speak to him. But every year on his birthday, his younger sister, Posy, sent him a painting. This year it was a landscape of the view from the hill next to his old family home out in District 12. They were usually landscapes, mainly watercolours, with the occasional oil on canvas of their neighbours' cat – man, that was a ugly fucking cat, but Posy always painted it real good.

The dope wore off and rather than getting depressed by missing his family, Gale got up off his ass and dressed for the day. Throwing on his ratty old denim shirt and denim cut-off shorts, he strode out his house and jumped in his car.

Last night Glimmer had told him about the disappearance of Cato, and today he was going to go talk to this Marvel. He had thought about it all night, and when he woke up this morning he had decided to at least check out what this guy had to say.

After a short drive downtown, Gale pulled up outside Panem Financials LLP and put his ride in park. He attempted to flatten the hair at the back of his head that always stuck up and combed his fingers through his beard.

The sun was high in the early afternoon sky and the heat of District 4 left perspiration on Gale's face. As he stepped inside the foyer of Panem Financials, the cool air hit him like a satisfying lick of coke, and he walked up to the front desk playing up the sexy walk he knew he did well.

Sure enough, he caught the attention of the receptionist. She was a thin woman, with a fox-like face, her hair tied back and a grey suit covering her flat chest.

"Hey, darlin'," Gale said to her. The woman looked up and blushed, either at the charm he was trying to display or the smell of too much aftershave.

"I've got a meeting with Marvel James, mind pointing me in the right direction."

The girl nodded, and fumbled as she searched a directory for the workers in the building.

"He's on floor three, room 3.14." she batted her eyelashes.

"Groovy," he read her badge and said her name with equal amounts flirtation and sexiness, "See ya later, Jade."

Leaving the poor girl quite frazzled, he made his way to the elevator and pressed the button to go up.

"Well, look who it is," a feminine voice from behind him said, "Gale Hawthorne. Looking as fucked up as ever."

Gale turned to find Bristel Fletcher standing with a smirk on her face.

"And look at you," Gale muttered, "As clean and proper as ever. Still letting guys motorboat you by the Slag Heap?"

Bristel laughed, throwing her head back. "Some people just don't change. Especially you, Gale Hawthorne."

Bristel Fletcher was a girl he went to high school with back in District 12. She was the same age as him, and had been good friends with him and his then best friend, Thom. Bristel, like Gale and Thom, had come from the poor part of town, the Seam. They're parents all worked together in the mines, and the three of them had made a pact to get out of the district and make a good living for themselves. By the looks of it, Bristel had done what they had all set out to achieve. Gale had heard that she had moved out west a few years back, but knew little of what kind of work she was doing. In fact, this was the last place he thought he'd find her, and he was a little disappointed to find her Panem pin placed proudly on her blue blazer.

They exchanged stern looks until Gale's scowl cracked and he rumbled with laughter. "How you doing?"

"Good," Bristel smiled, and held up her left hand, displaying a large diamond ring on her wedding finger.

If he had to be honest, Gale was a little jealous. Here was Bristel, came from nothing, like him, and now had a fat diamond ring and was making some serious cash, and here he was – a doper P.I. with a bad reputation.

"A guy I met in college. His name is Jim. We just got engaged a few months ago." Her smile was bright with elation, and Gale could only return it.

"So, what brings you here?" She asked, finally, giving him a once over and raising her eyebrows at his threadbare shorts.

Gale shrugged, "Meeting with someone."

"You're doing P.I. shit now, right?" She asked, "Think I heard it around town."

Gale nodded. He didn't like when people knew things about him. Especially things that proved he had fallen from grace hard and fast. But he liked to look on the bright side. He got up late, went to bed late, worked for himself. It was a pretty fair deal, he reminded himself.

"Who you talking to?" she asked, a defensive edge now creeping in on her voice.

Defensive to him? Gale thought. What did she know?

"Some guy called Marvel."

Bristel pursed her lips, and nodded. "Well, I've got someplace to be." She seemed to contemplate leaving for a minute as Gale still waited on the elevator.

It seemed like she took a while to decide something, but then she pulled out a small white card from her blazer pocket. Her business card.

"If you want to catch up, reach me on this number." She said, then paused, as if contemplating again… "In fact, if you need anything," emphasis on the anything, "Don't hesitate to call." She smiled as if pulled out of her thoughts, and wished him well.

Gale frowned, watching her as she walked away, mystified and intrigued. What did she know? What was she hiding?

He found room 3.14 with no problems. It was down the back of a busy office. The sound of people punching numbers died down when the elevator doors opened and out walked Gale, a hippy in the office of hotshot finance grads and middle-aged fat bellied men. He got a few nasty looks and shrugged them off, ignoring their stares and went in search of Marvel James.

He knocked on the door to Marvel's office.

The blonde haired man sniffed and looked up. "What the fuck do you want?" he asked; giving Gale the once over he had just been through out in the main office.

Gale walked in to the room, shutting the door behind him.

"What do you think…"

"I'm looking for Cato Sullivan, and I think you can help me." Gale interrupted.

"Cato quite a month ago." Marvel sneered.

"Why?"

"Why?" Marvel repeated, "He probably ran off with some guy's cash."

Gale rubbed his beard.

"Wait," Marvel stood up from his chair, "Have you spoke to that Glimmer chick?"

Gale nodded, "She may have asked me to look into his disappearance."

Marvel looked Gale up and down again, lingering on his shorts, "You're not a cop," he said, "You a P.I.?"

Gale nodded again.

"Okay," Marvel moved towards him, "Marvel James," he introduced himself, holding out his hand.

"Gale Hawthorne," he shook Marvel's hand.

Marvel looked towards the door, "You got any blow?" he sniffed.

Gale shook his head, "Nah," he said, "Just some dope,"

Marvel fidgeted, "Listen, I didn't say this to the girl. She looked upset, seemed to think something bad happened to Cato." He moved to the window and looked out towards the sea, "I didn't want to make her more upset, so I told her what she wanted to know. That he sent in a letter of resignation and that was the last I'd seen of him."

"So you're covering for him?"

Marvel laughed, "No, I haven't seen him since before. On the Friday he was fine, then never showed up to work on the Monday. Day later and we get this letter." He moved back to his desk, reached into the top drawer and withdrew an envelope. "Here, I made a copy."

Gale took the letter. The address of the firm had been typed. He opened it up, the inside letter was typed as well.

"I never told her this, but Cato had been hanging around with this crew called the Peacekeepers. He figured they could get him into the good life in the Capitol, had ties to him through Snow. I think he took off to join them."

"Do you think he was forced?"

The blonde haired man laughed, "Cato, no way. Have you seen that guy? Works out four times a week."

Gale took out his notebook, Lifts, he wrote.

"Did Cato have a typewriter?"

Marvel shrugged, "In his office,"

So he either typed the letter on Friday or someone else sent it.

"He was seeing someone." Marvel said, "I never knew until a week before he left. He showed me a picture. Blonde – kind of looks like that other chick, Glimmer. Long hair, big tits. Hippy like you." Marvel laughed, "I thought he was delusional. I don't know what she got him into, but she was the last woman I thought he'd be with. Hell, I considered that maybe they had run off together, but then I remembered how set he was on having the Capitol lifestyle. It just didn't seem right."

Gale pocketed the letter. "She got a name?"

"I can't remember," Marvel muttered, "Something to do with sea? Man, I don't know. An old name."

Gale nodded his thanks and went to leave the office, but was stopped by Marvel's sniffing.

"You got any of that dope?"

Talking to Marvel had been almost a dead end. Almost. At least he'd gotten the letter, and what was sort of a name.

He was driving home from downtown, the radio blasting sweet psychedelic rhythms into the weekday afternoon. With one hand on the wheel and the other holding a cigarette, Gale looked the picture of ease cruising on the freeway back to his house by the beach. On the inside, it was a different story.

This case – if a case was even what it was – was bringing back too many memories from the past. Memories he would rather leave buried. Was it a coincidence that he would bump into one of his childhood best friends the same day he went to investigate the so-called "disappearance" of Cato Sullivan? He'd rather not get into the last time he had seen Bristel Fletcher. He didn't know where he stood with her, but her business card was tucked in his back pocket with the weight of too many years gone by. They had chatted like old times, taking the piss was easy – something he didn't have to think about until she left. Left him with the lingering wonder and puzzlement of what she had said. "If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to call…"

It sounded like she knew something, and that something troubled Gale a lot. What did she know? Did it have something to do with Cato? Gale had scribbled her number in his notebook just in case he lost her business card through the hole in his back pocket.

And Cato, damn that fucking Cato Sullivan. Gale had hoped he would never see him again, and this case was just leading him from one shitty lead to another. Glimmer, who basically had a hunch that this guy had been kidnapped, lead him to some suit with coke so far up his nose it was practically blowing out of his ass. Who knew where this Marvel was taking him. All he had to go on was a letter with no return address, and a name, but not a name - a woman with blonde hair and big tits. Fuck it could have been Glimmer he was talking about, although this Marvel was sure it wasn't. He had met Glimmer, and was pretty sure this other woman was getting Cato into trouble. Trouble Cato didn't seem to want to get involved in this time. Whatever was going on, an interest had started to swell up inside of Gale. It was beginning to roar, and he knew it was leading him to the Peacekeeper Brotherhood.

Glimmer had said they were out by the Old Arena, doing fuck knows for fuckin' Snow. That seemed to be his only lead. So he drove to Abernathy's to grab a beer and someone he could trust.

"You busy?" he asked Boggs as he walked up to his friend at the bar.

"Not got much going on, why?"

"Need your assistance." Gale puffed on his cigarette.

Twenty minutes later and they were in Gale's car headed south towards the outskirts of District 4 and the boundary of the Old Arena. The sun was setting and dusk was beginning to fall.

Boggs sat in the passengers seat, smoking from his joint. He was a big guy, a good head on his shoulders, who had come into some bad luck after he failed to do his job successfully. An ex-bodyguard, Boggs was built bigger than Gale, taller and wider across the shoulders with dark skin and darker eyes. He had met Gale in Abernathy's one night three years ago, and the two of them had been friends ever since.

Like Gale, Boggs was trying to forget his own life. Sadly for him, Boggs now worked for some club downtown on the nightshift, a job he hated but needed to be able to provide for his daughter. Usually on his night off no one could get him to leave his favourite stool by the bar that was close to the tap. But Gale was offering some fun, and running around in the dark spying on some dumbass MC wannabes sure sounded like fun.

They parked far out and walked a ways in through the trees.

The Old Arena was a once chartered area of Panem, but now it was just wilderness. No one knew quite why it was called the Old Arena. Apparently a few hundred years ago, it was used for some dumbass game where kids would fight to the death out in the wilderness for sport. People made some fucked up bets and got rich, or so Gale had heard. He figured it was lies, just a bunch of shit people told to keep their kids from going out into the unknown to get high and have sex. Every once in a while someone would go missing and people liked to say it was the ghosts of hundreds of kids picking their next tribute. That or they died getting lost or got picked up by some thugs – probably the Peacekeeper Brotherhood. Due to it being unchartered, the Old Arena was usually used for some illegal drug activity. It didn't surprise Gale that Snow was up to some shady business out in the wild.

There was an old parking lot at the border that was unwatched, and empty save for a rusty old bicycle that Gale assumed had been abandoned. He had been out here a few times: going on hikes; buying weeds form a guy, until the poor sod got himself killed by overdosing on heroin. He knew the area pretty well, and figured he knew where Snow could possibly be.

They walked in through the woods for half a mile. There was an old building a while out, and Gale guessed they'd be there. It was a lucky guess too. One thing that Gale was good at was thinking like the person he was searching for, that's why he'd become a P.I. He figured he could think like a criminal without being a criminal and still get paid for it. He had also been high as fuck when he filled in the form for a licence and was shocked to say the least when he received his actual licence.

Before they came to the building, they saw lights. They crouched down in the bushes, hiding from view and watched a group of men dressed in white walk around to the back of an old pick-up truck.

"Who the fuck are these guys?" Boggs said.

"Shh…" Gale hushed, watching what was going on from the dirty ground. His knees were filthy but he crawled forward a bit to get a better view. He was in his element.

He reached for his notepad, and that's when he saw Snow.

The oil tycoon was in his sixties, white haired, as his name would suggest. He always wore a spotless white suit with a frilly rose in his breast pocket. To Gale, it looked like he was arguing with someone. They were too far away for Gale to hear anything, yet they didn't appear to be saying anything. Snow did all the talking, and although Gale could barely hear him, he could see them clearly.

One man – of the Peacekeeper brotherhood – reached behind him to one of his brothers, who handed him a white bag. He passed it to Snow who cut through the bag with a knife and tasted the white substance within.

It was a few seconds before Snow spoke again. And by the looks of things, it wasn't going down well. He tossed the bag to a man behind him dressed in black with the most ridiculous beard Gale had ever seen, and pulled out a gun and shot the brother point blank. Blood spattered over Snow's suit. The body fell limp to the ground, and Gale watched in shock as Snow turned his back to talk to his men.

Gale opened his notebook to make a quick note of the licence plate of the car that was parked behind Snow, but realised he didn't have a pen.

"Fuck, you got a pen Boggs?" Gale muttered.

He watched Snow shrug out of his jacket and threw it down on the ground by the dead body.

"Boggs!" Gale hissed. He made to turn, but got a glimpse of a woman with her pale arm wrapped around his friend's throat. Gale almost laughed at her skinny ass arm, until he saw the shine of a knife.

"Don't move!" the woman held the knife to Boggs's throat. Her long blonde hair was flowing to the rhythm of the breeze. Her face was free of make-up, and displayed wide frightened blue eyes.

Gale would notice those blue eyes anywhere. Damn, he'd spent his half his teenage years trying to forget those eyes, and his twenties trying to remember them.

"Gale Hawthorne?" the woman asked, shock written all over her pretty face.

Gale's heart thundered in his chest, and he craved a cigarette.

"Madge Undersee?"