Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Other American Stories Read online

  “The fuck it is!” he shouted. “Just because I’m a goddamn lawyer doesn’t mean you can walk around stealing stuff right in front of me!” He backed away. “What the hell is wrong with you? We’ll never beat a rap like this.”

  After much difficulty, we got back to the room and tried to have a serious talk with Lucy. I felt like a Nazi, but it had to be done. She was not right for us—not in this fragile situation. It was bad enough if she were only what she appeared to be—a strange young girl in the throes of a bad psychotic episode—but what worried me far more than that was the likelihood that she would probably be just sane enough, in a few hours, to work herself into a towering Jesus-based rage at the hazy recollection of being picked up and seduced in the Los Angeles International Airport by some kind of cruel Samoan who fed her liquor and LSD, then dragged her to a Vegas hotel room and savagely penetrated every orifice in her body with his throbbing, uncircumcised member.

  I had a terrible vision of Lucy crashing into Barbra Streisand’s dressing room at the Americana and laying this brutal story on her. That would finish us. They would track us down and probably castrate us both, prior to booking . . .

  I explained this to my attorney, who was now in tears at the idea of sending Lucy away. She was still powerfully twisted, and I felt the only solution was to get her as far as possible from the Flamingo before she got straight enough to remember where she’d been and what happened to her.

  Lucy, while we argued, was lying on the patio, doing a charcoal sketch of Barbra Streisand. From memory this time. It was a full-faced rendering, with teeth like baseballs and eyes like jellied fire.

  The sheer intensity of the thing made me nervous. This girl was a walking bomb. God only knows what she might be doing with all that mis-wired energy right now if she didn’t have her sketch pad. And what was she going to do when she got straight enough to read The Vegas Visitor, as I just had, and learn that Streisand wasn’t due at the Americana for another three weeks?

  My attorney finally agreed that Lucy would have to go. The possibility of a Mann Act conviction, resulting in disbarment proceedings and total loss of his livelihood, was a key factor in his decision. A nasty federal rap. Especially for a monster Samoan facing a typical white middle-class jury in Southern California.

  “They might even call it kidnapping,” I said. “Straight to the gas chamber, like Chessman. And even if you manage to beat that, they’ll send you back to Nevada for Rape and Consensual Sodomy.”

  “No!” he shouted. “I felt sorry for the girl, I wanted to help her!”

  I smiled. “That’s what Fatty Arbuckle said, and you know what they did to him.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Just picture yourself telling a jury that you tried to help this poor girl by giving her LSD and then taking her out to Vegas for one of your special stark-naked back rubs.”

  He shook his head sadly. “You’re right. They’d probably burn me at the goddamn stake . . . set me on fire right there in the dock. Shit, it doesn’t pay to try to help somebody these days . . .”

  We coaxed Lucy down to the car, telling her that we thought it was about time to “go meet Barbra.” We had no trouble convincing her that she should take all her artwork, but she couldn’t understand why my attorney wanted to bring her suitcase along. “I don’t want to embarrass her,” she protested. “She’ll think I’m trying to move in with her, or something.”

  “No she won’t,” I said quickly . . . but that was all I could think of to say. I felt like Martin Bormann. What would happen to this poor wretch when we cut her loose? Jail? White slavery? What would Dr. Darwin do under these circumstances? (Survival of the . . . fittest? Was that the proper word? Had Darwin ever considered the idea of temporary unfitness? Like “temporary insanity.” Could the Doctor have made room in his theory for a thing like LSD?)

  All this was academic, of course. Lucy was a potentially fatal millstone on both our necks. There was absolutely no choice but to cut her adrift and hope her memory was fucked. But some acid victims—especially nervous mongoloids—have a strange kind of idiot-savant capacity for remembering odd details and nothing else. It was possible that Lucy might spend two more days in the grip of total amnesia, then snap out of it with no memory of anything but our room number at the Flamingo. . . .

  I thought about this . . . but the only alternative was to take her out to the desert and feed her remains to the lizards. I wasn’t ready for this; it seemed a bit heavy for the thing we were trying to protect: My attorney. It came down to that. So the problem was to work out a balance, to aim Lucy in a direction that wouldn’t snap her mind and provoke a disastrous backlash.

  She had money. My attorney had ascertained that. “At least $200,” he’d said. “And we can always call the cops up there in Montana, where she lives, and turn her in.”

  I was reluctant to do this. The only thing worse than turning her loose in Vegas, I felt, was turning her over to “the authorities” . . . and that was clearly out of the question, anyway. Not now. “What kind of goddamn monster are you?” I said. “First you kidnap the girl, then you rape her, and now you want to have her locked up!”

  He shrugged. “It just occurred to me,” he said, “that she has no witnesses. Anything she says about us is completely worthless.”

  “Us?” I said.

  He stared at me. I could see that his head was clearing. The acid was almost gone. This meant that Lucy was probably coming down, too. It was time to cut the cord.

  Lucy was waiting for us in the car, listening to the radio with a twisted smile on her face. We were standing about ten yards off. Anybody watching us from a distance might have thought we were having some kind of vicious, showdown argument about who had “rights to the girl.” It was a standard scene for a Vegas parking lot.

  We finally decided to make her a reservation at the Americana. My attorney ambled over to the car and got her last name under some pretense, then I hurried inside and called the hotel—saying that I was her uncle and that I wanted her to be “treated very gently,” because she was an artist and might seem a trifle high-strung. The room clerk assured me they’d give her every courtesy.

  Then we drove her out to the airport, saying we were going to trade the White Whale in for a Mercedes 600, and my attorney took her into the lobby with all her gear. She was still unhinged and babbling when he led her away. I drove around a corner and waited for him.

  Ten minutes later he shuffled up to the car and got in. “Take off slowly,” he said. “Don’t attract any attention.”

  When we got out on Las Vegas Boulevard he explained that he’d given one of the airport cab-hasslers a $10 bill to see that his “drunk girlfriend” got to the Americana, where she had a reservation. “I told him to make sure she got there,” he said.

  “You think she will?”

  He nodded. “The guy said he’d pay the fare with the extra five bucks I gave him, and tell the cabbie to humor her. I told him I had some business to take care of, but I’d be there myself in an hour—and if the girl wasn’t already checked in, I’d come back out here and rip his lungs out.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “You can’t be subtle in this town.”

  He grinned. “As your attorney, I advise you to tell me where you put the goddamn mescaline.”

  I pulled over. The kit-bag was in the trunk. He fetched out two pellets and we each ate one. The sun was going down behind the scrub hills northwest of the city. A good Kristofferson tune was croaking out of the radio. We cruised back to town through the warm dusk, relaxed on the red leather seats of our electric white Coupe de Ville.

  “Maybe we should take it easy tonight,” I said as we flashed past the Tropicana.

  “Right,” he said. “Let’s find a good seafood restaurant and eat some red salmon. I feel a powerful lust for red salmon.”

  I agreed. “But first we should go back to the hotel and settle in. Maybe have a quick swim and some rum.”

  He n
odded, leaning back on the seat and staring up at the sky. Night was coming down slowly.

  4.

  No Refuge for Degenerates . . . Reflections on a Murderous Junkie

  We drove through the parking lot of the Flamingo and around the back, through the labyrinth, to our wing. No problem with parking, no problem with the elevator, and the suite was dead quiet when we entered: half-dark and peacefully elegant, with big sliding walls opening out on the lawn and the pool.

  The only thing moving in the room was the red-blinking message light on the telephone. “Probably room service,” I said. “I ordered some ice and booze. I guess it came while we were gone.”

  My attorney shrugged. “We have plenty,” he said. “But we might as well get more. Hell yes, tell them to send it up.”

  I picked up the phone and dialed the desk. “What’s the message?” I asked. “My light is blinking.”

  The clerk seemed to hesitate. I could hear papers shuffling. “Ah yes,” he said finally. “Mister Duke? Yes, you have two messages. One says, ‘Welcome to Las Vegas, from the National District Attorneys’ Association.’”

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  “. . . and the other,” he continued, “says, ‘Call Lucy at the Americana, room 1600.’”

  “What?”

  He repeated the message. There was no mistake.

  “Holy shit!” I muttered.

  “Excuse me?” said the clerk.

  I hung up.

  • • •

  My attorney was doing the Big Spit, again, in the bathroom. I walked out on the balcony and stared at the pool, this kidney-shaped bag of bright water that shimmered outside our suite. I felt like Othello. Here I’d only been in town a few hours, and we’d already laid the groundwork for a classic tragedy. The hero was doomed; he had already sown the seed of his own downfall. . . .

  But who was the Hero of this filthy drama? I turned away from the pool and confronted my attorney, now emerging from the bathroom and wiping his mouth with a towel. His eyes were glazed and limpid. “This goddamn mescaline,” he muttered. “Why the fuck can’t they make it a little less pure? Maybe mix it up with Rollaids, or something?”

  “Othello used Dramamine,” I said.

  He nodded, hanging the towel around his neck as he reached out to flip on the TV set. “Yeah, I heard about those remedies. Your man Fatty Arbuckle used olive oil.”

  “Lucy called,” I said.

  “What?” He sagged visibly—like an animal taking a bullet.

  “I just got the message from the desk. She’s at the Americana, room 1600 . . . and she wants us to call.”

  He stared at me . . . and just then the phone rang.

  I shrugged and picked it up. There was no point trying to hide. She had found us, and that was enough.

  “Hello,” I said.

  It was the room clerk again.

  “Mister Duke?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hello, Mister Duke. I’m sorry we were cut off a moment ago . . . but I thought I should call again, because I was wondering . . .”

  “What?” I sensed things closing down on us. This fucker was about to spring something on me. What had that crazy bitch said to him? I tried to stay calm. “We’re watching the goddamn news!” I screamed. “What the fuck are you interrupting me for?”

  Silence.

  “What do you want? Where’s the goddamn ice I ordered? Where’s the booze? There’s a war on, man! People are being killed!”

  “Killed?” He almost whispered the word.

  “In Vietnam!” I yelled. “On the goddamn television!”

  “Oh . . . yes . . . yes,” he said. “This terrible war. When will it end?”

  “Tell me,” I said quietly. “What do you want?”

  “Of course,” he said, snapping back to his desk-clerk tone. “I thought I should tell you . . . because I know you’re here with the Police Convention . . . that the woman who left that message for you sounded very disturbed.”

  He hesitated, but I said nothing.

  “I thought you should know this,” he said finally.

  “What did you say to her?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all, Mister Duke. I merely took the message.” He paused. “But it wasn’t that easy, talking to that woman. She was . . . well . . . extremely nervous. I think she was crying.”

  “Crying?” My brain had locked up. I couldn’t think. The drug was taking over. “Why was she crying?”

  “Well . . . ah . . . she didn’t say, Mister Duke. But since I knew the nature of your work I thought—”

  “I know,” I said quickly. “Look, you want to be gentle with that woman if she ever calls again. She’s our case study. We’re watching her very carefully.” I felt my head unwinding now; the words came easily: “She’s perfectly harmless, of course . . . there’ll be no trouble . . . this woman has been into laudanum, it’s a controlled experiment, but I suspect we’ll need your cooperation before this thing is over.”

  “Well . . . certainly,” he said. “We’re always happy to cooperate with the police . . . just as long as there won’t be any trouble . . . for us, I mean.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re protected. Just treat this poor woman like you’d treat any other human being in trouble.”

  “What?” He seemed to be stuttering. “Ah . . . yes, yes, I see what you mean . . . yes . . . so you’ll be responsible then?”

  “Of course,” I said. “And now I have to get back to the news.”

  “Thank you,” he muttered.

  “Send the ice,” I said, and hung up.

  My attorney was smiling peacefully at the TV set. “Good work,” he said. “They’ll treat us like goddamn lepers, after that.”

  I nodded, filling a tall glass with Chivas Regal.

  “There hasn’t been any news on the tube for three hours,” he said absently. “That poor fool probably thinks we’re plugged into some kind of special cop channel. You should call back and ask him to send up a 3000 watt sensing capacitator, along with the ice. Tell him ours just burned out . . .”

  “You forgot about Lucy,” I said. “She’s looking for you.”

  He laughed. “No, she’s looking for you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. She really flipped over you. The only way I could get rid of her, out there in the airport, was by saying you were taking me out to the desert for a showdown—that you wanted me out of the way so you could have her all to yourself.” He shrugged. “Shit, I had to tell her something. I said she should go to the Americana and wait to see which one of us came back.” He laughed again. “I guess she figures you won. That phone message wasn’t for me, was it?”

  I nodded. It made no sense at all, but I knew it was true. Drug reasoning. The rhythms were brutally clear—and, to him, they made excellent sense.

  He was slumped in the chair, concentrating on Mission Impossible.

  I thought for a while, then stood up and began stuffing things into my suitcase.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Never mind,” I said. The zipper stuck momentarily, but I yanked it shut. Then I put on my shoes.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Jesus, you’re not leaving?”

  I nodded. “You’re goddamn right, I’m leaving. But don’t worry. I’ll stop at the desk on my way out. You’ll be taken care of.”

  He stood up quickly, kicking his drink over. “OK, god-damnit, this is serious! Where’s my .357?”

  I shrugged, not looking at him as I crammed the Chivas Regal bottles into my hand-satchel. “I sold it in Baker,” I said. “I owe you 35 bucks.”

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted. “That thing cost me a hundred and ninety goddamn dollars!”

  I smiled. “You told me where you got that gun,” I said. “Remember?”

  He hesitated, pretending to think. “Oh yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah . . . that punk out in Pasadena . . .” Then he flared again. “So it cost me a goddamn grand. That assho
le shot a narc. He was looking at life! . . . shit, three weeks in court, and all I got was a fucking six-shooter.”

  “You’re stupid,” I said. “I warned you about dealing with junkies on credit—especially when they’re guilty. You’re lucky the bastard didn’t pay you off with a bullet in the stomach.”

  My attorney sagged. “He was my cousin. The jury found him innocent.”

  “Shit!” I snapped. “How many people has that junkie bastard shot since we’ve known him? Six? Eight? That evil little fuck is so guilty that I should probably kill him myself, on general principles. He shot that narc just as sure as he killed that girl at the Holiday Inn . . . and that guy in Ventura!”

  He eyed me coldly. “You better be careful, man. You’re into some heavy slander.”

  I laughed, tossing my luggage together in a lump at the foot of the bed while I sat down to finish my drink. I actually intended to leave. I didn’t really want to, but I figured that nothing I could possibly do with this gig was worth the risk of getting tangled up with Lucy . . . No doubt she was a beautiful person, if she ever got straight . . . very sensitive, with a secret reserve of fine karma underneath her Pit Bull act; a great talent with fine instincts . . . Just a heavy little gal who unfortunately went stone crazy somewhere prior to her eighteenth birthday.

  I had nothing personal against her. But I knew she was perfectly capable—under these circumstances—of sending us both to prison for at least twenty years, on the strength of some heinous story we would probably never even hear until she took the stand:

  “Yessir, those two men over there in the dock are the ones who gave me the LSD and took me to the hotel . . .”

  “And what did they do then, Lucy?”

  “Well, sir, I can’t rightly remember . . .”

  “Indeed? Well, perhaps this document from the District Attorney’s files will refresh your memory, Lucy . . . This is the statement you made to Officer Squane shortly after you were found wandering naked in the desert near Lake Mead.”

  “I don’t know for sure what they done to me, but I remember it was horrible. One guy picked me up in the Los Angeles airport; he’s the one who gave me the pill . . . and the other one met us at the hotel; he was sweating real bad and he talked so fast that I couldn’t understand what he wanted . . . No sir, I don’t recall exactly what they did to me at that point, because I was still under the influence of that drug . . . yessir, the LSD they gave me . . . and I think I was naked for a long time, maybe the whole time they had me there. I think it was evening, because I remember they had the news on. Yessir, Walter Cronkite, I remember his face all through it . . .”