Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era – the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle Sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run ... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. ...
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time – and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights – or very early mornings – when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at 100 miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket ... booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) ... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. ...
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. ... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. ...
And that, I think, was the handle – that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. ...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
IX
No sympathy for the Devil ... newsmen tortured? ... flight into madness
The decision to flee came suddenly. Or maybe not. Maybe I'd planned it all along – subconsciously waiting for the right moment. The bill was a factor, I think. Because I had no money to pay it. And no more of these devilish credit-card/reimbursement deals. Not after dealing with Sidney Zion. They seized my American Express card after that one, and now the bastards are suing me – along with the Diner's Club and the IRS. ...
And besides, the magazine is legally responsible. My attorney saw to that. We signed nothing. Except those room service tabs. We never knew the total, but – just before we left – my attorney figured we were running somewhere between $29 and $36 per hour, for 48 consecutive hours.
"Incredible," I said. "How could it happen?"
But by the time I asked this question, there was nobody around to answer. My attorney was gone.
He must have sensed trouble. On Monday evening he ordered up a set of fine cowhide luggage from room service, then told me he had reservations on the next plane for L.A. We would have to hurry, he said, and on the way to the airport he borrowed $25 for the plane ticket.
I saw him off, then I went back to the airport souvenir counter and spent all the rest of my cash on garbage – complete shit, souvenirs of Las Vegas, plastic fake-Zippo-lighters with a built-in roulette wheel for $6.95, JFK half-dollar money clips for $5 each, tin apes that shook dice for $7.50 ... I loaded up on this crap, then carried it out to the Great Red Shark and dumped it all in the back seat ... and then I stepped into the driver's seat in a very dignified way (the white top was rolled back, as always) and I sat there and turned the radio on and began thinking.
How would Horatio Alger handle this situation?
One toke over the line, sweet Jesus ... one toke over the line.
Panic. It crept up my spine like the first rising vibes of an acid frenzy. All these horrible realities began to dawn on me: Here I was all alone in Las Vegas with this goddamn incredibly expensive car, completely twisted on drugs, no attorney, no cash, no story for the magazine – and on top of everything else I had a gigantic goddamn hotel bill to deal with. We had ordered everything into that room that human hands could carry – including about 600 bars of translucent Neutrogena soap.
The whole car was full of it – all over the floors, the seats, the glove compartment. My attorney had worked out some kind of arrangement with the mestizo maids on our floor to have this soap delivered to us – 600 bars of this weird, transparent shit – and now it was all mine.
Along with this plastic briefcase that I suddenly noticed right beside me on the front seat. I lifted the fucker and knew immediately what was inside. No Samoan attorney in his right mind is going to stomp through the metal-detector gates of a commercial airline with a fat black .357 Magnum on his person. ...
So he had left it with me, for delivery – if I made it back to L.A. Otherwise ... well, I could almost hear myself talking to the California Highway Patrol:
What? This weapon? This loaded, unregistered, concealed and maybe hot .357 Magnum? What am I doing with it? Well, you see, officer, I pulled off the road near Mescal Springs – on the advice of my attorney, who subsequently disappeared – and all of a sudden while I was just sort of walking around that deserted waterhole by myself for no reason at all when this little fella with a beard came up to me, out of nowhere, and he had this horrible linoleum knife in one hand and this huge black pistol in the other hand ... and he offered to carve a big X on my forehead, in memory of Lt. Calley ... but when I told him I was a doctor of journalism his whole attitude changed. Yes, you probably won't believe this, officer, but he suddenly hurled that knife into the brackish mescal waters near our feet, and then he gave me this revolver. Right, he just shoved it into my hands, butt-first, and then he ran off into the darkness.
So that's why I have this weapon, officer. Can you believe that?
No.
But I wasn't about to throw the bastard away, either. A good .357 is a hard thing to get, these days.
So I figured, well, just get this bugger back to Malibu, and it's mine. My risk – my gun: it made perfect sense. And if that Samoan pig wanted to argue, if he wanted to come yelling around the house, give him a taste of the bugger about midway up the femur. Indeed. 158 grains of half-jacketed lead/alloy, traveling 1500 feet per second, equals about 40 pounds of Samoan hamburger, mixed up with bone splinters. Why not?
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 24 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 $35 a day suite and a fantastic room service bill, run up in 48 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:
Trio Re-Arrested in Beauty's Death
"An overdose of heroin was listed as the official cause of death for pretty Diane Hamby, 19, whose body was found stuffed in a refrigerator last week, according to the Clark County Coroner's office. Investigators of the sheriff's homicide team who went to arrest the suspects said that one, a 24-year-old woman, attempted to fling herself through the glass doors of her trailer before being stopped by deputies. Officers said she was apparently hysterical and shouted, 'You'll never take me alive.' But officers handcuffed the woman and she apparently was not injured. ..."
Gi Drug Deaths Claimed
"Washington (AP) – A House Subcommittee report says illegal drugs killed 160 American GI's last year – 40 of them in Vietnam ... Drugs were suspected, it said, in another 56 military deaths in Asia and the Pacific Command ... It said the heroin problem in Vietnam is increasing in seriousness, primarily because of processing laboratories in Laos, Thailand and Hong Kong. 'Drug suppression in Vietnam is almost completely ineffective,' the report said, 'partially because of an ineffective local police force and partially because some presently unknown corrupt officials in public office are involved in the drug traffic'"
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: Torture tales told in war hearings.
"Washington – Volunteer witnesses told an informal congressional panel yesterday that while serving as military interrogators they routinely used electrical telephone hookups and helicopter drops to torture and kill Vietnamese prisoners. One Army intelligence specialist said the pistol slaying of his Chinese interpreter was defended by a superior who said, 'She was just a slope, anyway,' meaning she was an Asiatic. ..."
Right underneath that story was a headline saying: Five wounded near NYC Tenement ... 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: Pharmacy owner arrested in probe ... "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.
X
Western Union intervenes: A warning from ... Mr. Heem ... a new assignment from the Sports Desk and a savage invitation from the police
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 3000 miles away – some nervous drone behind a grey formica desk in the bowels of a journalistic bureauracracy that no cob 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 30 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.
Now idling along Las Vegas Boulevard at 30 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 freak-out 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.
XI
Aaawww, Mama, can this really he the end? ... down and out in Vegas, with amphetamine psychosis again?
Tuesday, 9:00 AM ... 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 exits, no 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 2000 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 300 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.
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, 60 and 70 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 waters ... 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 a 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 6:00 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.