Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, and other American stories (9 page)

Madness, madness . . . and meanwhile all alone with the Great Red Shark in the parking lot of the Las Vegas airport. To hell with this panic. Get a grip.
Maintain.
For the next twenty-four hours this matter of personal control will be critical. Here I am sitting out here alone on this fucking desert, in this nest of armed loonies, with a very dangerous carload of hazards, horrors and liabilities that I
must
get back to L.A. Because if they nail me out here, I’m doomed. Completely fucked. No question about that. No future for a doctor of journalism editing the state pen weekly. Better to get the hell out of this atavistic state at high speed. Right. But, first—back to the Mint Hotel and cash a $50 check, then up to the room and call down for two club sandwiches, two quarts of milk, a pot of coffee and a fifth of Bacardi Anejo.

Rum will be absolutely necessary to get through this night—to polish these notes, this shameful diary . . . keep the tape machine screaming all night long at top volume: “Allow me to introduce myself . . . I’m a man of wealth and taste.”

Sympathy?

Not for me. No mercy for a criminal freak in Las Vegas. This place is like the Army: the shark ethic prevails—eat the wounded. In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

It is a weird feeling to sit in a Las Vegas hotel at four in the morning—hunkered down with a notebook and a tape recorder in a $75-a-day suite and a fantastic room service bill, run up in forty-eight hours of total madness—knowing that just as soon as dawn comes up you are going to flee without paying a fucking penny . . . go stomping out through the lobby and call your red convertible down from the garage and stand there waiting for it with a suitcase full of marijuana and illegal weapons . . . trying to look casual, scanning the first morning edition of the Las Vegas
Sun.

This was the final step. I had taken all the grapefruit and other luggage out to the car a few hours earlier.

Now it was only a matter of slipping the noose: Yes, extremely casual behavior, wild eyes hidden behind these Saigon-mirror sun glasses . . . waiting for the Shark to roll up. Where is it? I gave that evil pimp of a carboy $5, a prime investment right now.

Stay calm, keep reading the paper. The lead story was a screaming blue headline across the top of the page:

To the left of that grim notice was a four-column center-page photo of Washington, D.C., cops fighting with “young anti-war demonstrators who staged a sit-in and blocked the entrance to Selective Service Headquarters.”

And next to the photo was a large black headline: T
ORTURE
T
ALES
T
OLD IN
W
AR
H
EARINGS
.

Right underneath that story was a headline saying: F
IVE
W
OUNDED
N
EAR
NYC T
ENEMENT
. . . by an unidentified gunman who fired from the roof of a building, for no apparent reason. This item appeared just above a headline that said: P
HARMACY
O
WNER
A
RRESTED IN
P
ROBE
. . . “a result,” the article explained, “of a preliminary investigation (of a Las Vegas pharmacy) showing a shortage of over 100,000 pills considered dangerous drugs. . . .”

Reading the front page made me feel a lot better. Against that heinous background, my crimes were pale and meaningless. I was a relatively respectable citizen—a multiple felon, perhaps, but certainly not dangerous. And when the Great Scorer came to write against my name, that would surely make a difference.

Or would it? I turned to the sports page and saw a small item about Muhammad Ali; his case was before the Supreme Court, the final appeal. He’d been sentenced to five years in prison for
refusing
to kill “slopes.”

“I ain’t got nothin’ against them Viet Congs,” he said.

Five years.

Suddenly I felt guilty again. The Shark! Where was it? I tossed the paper aside and began to pace. Losing control. I felt my whole act slipping . . . and then I saw the car, swooping down a ramp in the next-door garage.

Deliverance! I grasped my leather satchel and moved forward to meet my wheels.

“MISTER DUKE!”

The voice came from over my shoulder.

“Mister Duke! We’ve been looking for you!”

I almost collapsed on the curb. Every cell in my brain and body sagged. No! I thought. I must be hallucinating. There’s nobody back there, nobody calling . . . it’s a paranoid delusion, amphetamine psychosis . . . just keep walking towards the car, always smiling. . . .

“MISTER DUKE! Wait!”

Well . . . why not? Many fine books have been written in prison. And it’s not like I’ll be a total stranger up there in Carson City. The warden will recognize me; and the Con Boss—I once interviewed them for
The New York Times.
Along with a lot of other cons, guards, cops and assorted hustlers who got ugly, by mail, when the article never appeared.

Why not? They asked. They wanted their stories told. And it was hard to explain; in those circles, that everything they told me went into the wastebasket or at least the dead-end file because the lead paragraphs I wrote for that article didn’t satisfy some editor three thousand miles away—some nervous drone behind a grey formica desk in the bowels of a journalistic bureaucracy that no con in Nevada will ever understand—and that the article finally died on the vine, as it were, because I refused to rewrite the lead. For reasons of my own . . .

None of which would make much sense in The Yard. But what the hell? Why worry about details? I turned to face my accuser, a small young clerk with a big smile on his face and a yellow envelope in his hand. “I’ve been calling your room,” he said. “Then I saw you standing outside.”

I nodded, too tired to resist. By now the Shark was beside me, but I saw no point in even tossing my bag into it. The game was up. They had me.

The clerk was still smiling. “This telegram just came for you,” he said. “But actually it
isn’t
for you. It’s for somebody named Thompson, but it says ‘
care of
Raoul Duke’; does that make sense?”

I felt dizzy. It was too much to absorb all at once. From freedom, to prison, and then back to freedom again—all in thirty seconds. I staggered backwards and leaned on the car, feeling the white folds of the canvas top beneath my trembling hand. The clerk, still smiling, was poking the telegram at me.

I nodded, barely able to speak. “Yes,” I said finally, “it makes sense.” I accepted the envelope and tore it open:

“Holy shit!” I muttered. “This can’t be true!”

“You mean it’s not for you?” the clerk asked, suddenly nervous. “I checked the register for this man Thompson. We don’t show him, but I thought he was part of your team.”

“He is,” I said quickly. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it to him.” I tossed my bag into the front seat of the Shark, wanting to leave before my stay of execution ran out. But the clerk was still curious.

“What about Doctor Gonzo?” he said.

I stared at him, giving him a full taste of the mirrors. “He’s fine,” I said. “But he has a vicious temper. The Doctor handles our finances, makes all our
arrangements
.” I slid into the driver’s seat and prepared to leave.

The clerk leaned into the car. “What confused us,” he said, “was Doctor Gonzo’s signature on this telegram from Los Angeles—when we knew he was here in the hotel.” He shrugged. “And then to have the telegram addressed to some guest we couldn’t account for . . . well, this delay was unavoidable. You understand, I hope. . . .”

I nodded, impatient to flee. “You did the right thing,” I said. “Never try to understand a press message. About half the time we use codes—especially with Doctor Gonzo.”

He smiled again, but this time it seemed a trifle odd. “Tell me,” he said, “when will the doctor be awake?”

I tensed at the wheel “Awake? What do you mean?”

He seemed uncomfortable. “Well . . . the manager, Mister Heem, would like to
meet
him.” Now his grin was definitely malevolent. “Nothing unusual. Mr. Heem likes to meet all our
large
accounts . . . put them on a personal basis . . . just a chat and a handshake, you understand.”

“Of course,” I said. “But if I were you I’d leave the doctor alone until after he’s eaten breakfast. He’s a very crude man.”

The clerk nodded warily. “But he
will
be available. . . . Perhaps later this morning?”

I saw what he was getting at. “Look,” I said. “That telegram was all scrambled. It was actually
from
Thompson, not
to
him. Western Union must have got the names reversed.” I held up the telegram, knowing he’d already read it. “What this
is”
I said, “is a speed message to Doctor Gonzo, upstairs, saying Thompson is on his way out from L.A. with a new assignment—a new work order.” I waved him off the car. “See you later,” I snapped. “I have to get out to the track.”

He backed away as I eased the car into low gear. “There’s no hurry,” he called after me. “The race is
over.”

“Not for me,” I said, tossing him a quick friendly wave.

“Let’s have lunch!” he shouted as I turned into the street.

“Righto!” I yelled. And then I was off into traffic. After a few blocks in the wrong direction on Main Street, I doubled back and aimed south, towards L.A. But with all deliberate speed. Keep cool and slow, I thought. Just
drift
to the city limits. . . .

What I needed was a place to get safely off the road, out of sight, and ponder this incredible telegram from my attorney. It was true; I was certain of that. There was a definite valid urgency in the message. The tone was unmistakable. . . .

But I was in no mood or condition to spend another week in Las Vegas. Not
now.
I had pushed my luck about as far as it was going to carry me in this town . . . all the way out to the edge. And now the weasels were closing in; I could
smell
the ugly brutes.

Yes, it was definitely time to leave. My margin had shrunk to nothing.