Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, and other American stories (10 page)

Now idling along Las Vegas Boulevard at thirty miles an hour, I wanted a place to rest and formalize the decision. It was settled, of course, but I needed a beer or three to seal the bargain and stupefy that one rebellious nerve end that kept vibrating negative. . . .

It would have to be dealt with. Because there
was
an argument, of sorts, for staying on. It was treacherous, stupid and demented in every way—but there was no avoiding the stench of twisted humor that hovered around the idea of a gonzo journalist in the grip of a potentially terminal drug episode being invited to cover the National District Attorneys’ Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

There was also a certain bent appeal in the notion of running a savage burn on one Las Vegas Hotel and then—instead of becoming a doomed fugitive on the highway to L.A.—just wheeling across town, trading in the red Chevy convertible for a white Cadillac and checking into
another
Vegas hotel, with press credentials to mingle with a thousand ranking cops from all over America, while they harangued each other about the Drug Problem.

It was dangerous lunacy, but it was also the kind of thing a real connoisseur of edge-work could make an argument for. Where, for instance, was the
last
place the Las Vegas police would look for a drug-addled fraud-fugitive who just ripped off a downtown hotel?

Right. In the middle of a National District Attorneys’ Drug Conference at an elegant hotel on the strip. . . . Arriving at Caesar’s Palace for the Tom Jones dinner show in a flashing white Coupe de Ville . . . At a cocktail party for narcotics agents and their wives at the Dunes?

Indeed, what better place to hide? For
some
people. But not for me. And certainly not for my attorney—a very conspicuous person. Separately, we might pull it off. But together, no—we would blow it. Too much aggressive chemistry in that mix; the temptation to run a deliberate freakout would be too heavy.

And that of course would finish us. They would show us no mercy. To infiltrate the infiltrators would be to accept the fate of all spies: “As always, if you or any member of your organization is apprehended by the enemy, the Secretary will deny any Knowledge, etc. . . .”

No, it was too much. The line between madness and masochism was already hazy; the time had come to pull back . . . to retire, hunker down, back off and “cop out,” as it were. Why not? In every gig like this, there comes a time to either cut your losses or consolidate your winnings—whichever fits.

I drove slowly, looking for a proper place to sit down with an early morning beer and get my head together . . . to plot this unnatural retreat.

Tuesday, 9:00
A.M
. . . . Now, sitting in “Wild Bill’s Cafe” on the outskirts of Las Vegas, I saw it all very clearly. There is only one road to L.A.—US Interstate 15, a straight run with no backroads or alternate routes, just a flat-out high-speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo and then on the Hollywood Freeway straight into frantic oblivion: safety, obscurity, just another freak in the Freak Kingdom.

But in the meantime, for the next five or six hours, I’d be the most conspicuous thing on this goddamn evil road—the only fireapple-red shark convertible between Butte and Tijuana . . . blazing along this desert highway with a half-naked hillbilly mental case at the wheel. Is it better to wear my purple and green Acapulco shirt, or nothing at all?

No way to hide in this monster.

This will not be a happy run. Not even the Sun God wants to watch. He has gone behind a cloud for the first time in three days. No sun at all. The sky is grey and ugly.

Just as I pulled into Wild Bill’s back-street, half-hidden parking lot I heard a roar overhead and looked up to see a big silver smoke-trailing DC-8 taking off—about two thousand feet above the highway. Was Lacerda aboard? The man from
Life
? Did they have all the photos they needed? All the facts? Had they fulfilled their responsibilities?

I didn’t even know who’d won the race. Maybe nobody. For all I knew, the whole spectacle had been aborted by a terrible riot—an orgy of senseless violence, kicked off by drunken hoodlums who refused to abide by the rules.

I wanted to plug this gap in my knowledge at the earliest opportunity: Pick up the L.A.
Times
and scour the sports section for a Mint 400 story. Get the details. Cover myself. Even on the Run, in the grip of a serious Fear . . .

I knew it was Lacerda in that plane, heading back to New York. He told me last night that he meant to catch the first flight.

So there he goes . . . and here I am, with no attorney, slumped on a red plastic stool in Wild Bill’s Tavern, nervously sipping a Budweiser in a bar just coming awake to an early morning rush of pimps and pinball hustlers . . . with a huge Red Shark just outside the door so full of felonies that I’m afraid to even look at it.

But I can’t abandon the fucker. The only hope is to somehow get it across three hundred miles of open road between here and Sanctuary. But, sweet Jesus, I am
tired!
I’m scared. I’m crazy. This culture has beaten me down. What the fuck am I
doing
out here? This is not even the story I was supposed to be working on. My agent warned me against it. All signs were negative—especially that evil Dwark with the pink telephone in the Polo Lounge. I should have stayed there . . . anything but
this.

Aaaww . . . Mama

     
can this really be the end?

No!

Who played that song? Did I actually
hear
that fucking thing on the jukebox just now? At 9:19 on this filthy grey morning in Wild Bill’s Tavern?

No. That was only in my brain, some long-lost echo of a painful dawn in Toronto . . . a long time ago, half-mad in another world. . . . but no different.

HELP!

How many more nights and weird mornings can this terrible shit go on? How long can the body and the brain
tolerate
this doom-struck craziness? This grinding of teeth, this pouring of sweat, this pounding of blood in the temples . . . small blue veins gone amok in front of the ears, sixty and seventy hours with no sleep. . . .

And now that
is
the jukebox! Yes, no doubt about it . . . and why not? A very popular song: “Like a bridge over troubled water . . . I will lay me down . . .”

BOOM. Flashing paranoia. What kind of rat-bastard psychotic would play
that
song—right now, at this moment? Has somebody followed me here? Does the bartendress know who I am? Can she
see
me behind these mirrors?

All bartenders are treacherous, but this one is a surly middle-aged fat woman wearing a muu-muu and Iron Boy overalls . . . probably Wild Bill’s woman.

Jesus, bad waves of paranoia, madness, fear and loathing—intolerable vibrations in this place. Get out. Flee . . . and suddenly it occurs to me, some final flash of lunatic shrewdness before the darkness closes in, that my legal/hotel checkout time is not until
noon
. . . which gives me at least two hours of legitimate high-speed driving to get out of this goddamn state before I become a fugitive in the eyes of the law.

Wonderful luck. By the time the alarm goes off, I can be running full bore somewhere between Needles and Death Valley—jamming the accelerator through the floorboard and shaking my fist up at Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., swooping down on me in his FBI/Screaming Eagle helicopter.

YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE
^*

Fuck you, Efrem, that wisdom cuts both ways.

As far as you and the Mint people know, I am still up there in 1850—legally and spiritually if not in the actual flesh—with a “Do Not Disturb” sign hung out to ward off disturbance. The maids won’t come near that room as long as that sign is on the doorknob. My attorney saw to that—along with 600 bars of Neutrogena soap that I still have to deliver to Malibu. What will the FBI make of that? This Great Red Shark full of Neutrogena soap bars? All completely legal. The maids
gave
us that soap. They’ll swear to it . . . Or will they?

Of course not. Those goddamn treacherous maids will swear they were menaced by two heavily-armed crazies who threatened them with a Vincent Black Shadow unless they gave up all their soap.

Jesus Creeping God! Is there a priest in this tavern? I want to confess! I’m a fucking
sinner!
Venal, mortal, carnal, major, minor—however you want to call it, Lord . . . I’m guilty.

But do me this one last favor: just give me five more high-speed hours before you bring the hammer down; just let me get rid of this goddamn car and off of this horrible desert.

Which is not really a hell of a lot to ask, Lord, because the final incredible truth is that I am not guilty. All I did was take your gibberish
seriously
. . . and you see where it got me? My primitive Christian instincts have made me a criminal.

Creeping through the casino at six in the morning with a suitcase full of grapefruit and “Mint 400” T-shirts, I remember telling myself, over and over again, “You are not guilty.” This is merely a necessary expedient, to avoid a nasty scene. After all, I made no binding agreements; this is an
institutional debt
—nothing personal. This whole goddamn nightmare is the fault of that stinking, irresponsible
magazine
. Some fool in New York did this to me. It was
his
idea, Lord, not mine.

And now look at me: half-crazy with fear, driving 120 miles an hour across Death Valley in some car I never even wanted. You evil bastard! This is
your
work! You’d better take care of me, Lord . . . because if you don’t you’re going to have me
on your hands.

Tuesday, 12:30
P.M
. . . . Baker, California . . . Into the Ballantine Ale now, zombie drunk and nervous. I recognize this feeling: three or four days of booze, drugs, sun, no sleep and burned out adrenalin reserves—a giddy, quavering sort of high that means the crash is coming. But when? How much longer? This tension is part of the high. The possibility of physical and mental collapse is very real now. . . .

. . . but collapse is out of the question; as a solution or even a cheap alternative, it is
unacceptable.
Indeed. This is the moment of truth, that fine and fateful line between control and disaster—which is also the difference between staying loose and weird on the streets, or spending the next five years of summer mornings playing basketball in the yard at Carson City.

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride . . . and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well . . . maybe chalk it off to forced
consciousness expansion:
Tune in, freak out, get beaten. It’s all in Kesey’s Bible. . . . The Far Side of Reality.

And so much for bad gibberish; not even Kesey can help me now. I have just had two very bad emotional experiences—one with the California Highway Patrol and another with a phantom hitchhiker who may or may not have been who I thought it was—and now, feeling right on the verge of a bad psychotic episode, I am hunkered down with my tape machine in a “beer bar” that is actually the back room of a huge Hardware Barn—all kinds of plows and harnesses and piled-up fertilizer bags, and wondering how it all happened.

About five miles back I had a brush with the CHP. Not stopped or pulled over: nothing routine. I always drive properly. A bit fast, perhaps, but always with consummate skill and a natural feel for the road that even cops recognize. No cop was ever born who isn’t a sucker for a finely-executed hi-speed Controlled Drift
all the way around
one of those clover-leaf freeway interchanges.

Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a highway traffic cop. Your normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side when he sees the big red light behind him . . . and then we will start apologizing, begging for mercy.