Fear and Loating in Las Vegas. A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

Wednesday night police said Innes seemed to be in a deeply depressed state and so impervious to pain that he did not scream when he pulled out his eyes.

2. Another Day, Another Convertible ...& Another Hotel Full of Cops

The first order of business was to get rid of the Red Shark. It was too obvious. Too many people might recognize it, especially the Vegas police; although as far as they knew, the thing was already back home in L.A. It was last seen running at top speed across Death Valley on Interstate 15. Stopped and warned in Baker by the CHP ...then suddenly disapeared ...

The last place they would look for it, I felt, was in a rental-car lot at the airport. I had to go out there anyway, to meet my attorney. He would be arriving from L.A. in the late afternoon.

I drove very quietly on the freeway, gripping my normal instinct for bursts of acceleration and sudden lane changes—trying to remain inconspicuous—and when I got there I parked the Shark between two old Air Force buses in a “utility lot” about half a mile from the terminal. Very tall buses. Make it hard as possible for the fuckers. A little walking never hurt anybody.

By the time I got to the terminal I was pouring sweat. But nothing abnormal. I tend to sweat heavily in warm climates.clothes are soaking wet from dawn to dusk. This worried at first, but when I went to a doctor and described my normal daily intake of booze, drugs and poison he told me to come back when the sweating stopped. That would be the danger point, he said—a sign that my body’s desperately overworked flushing mechanism had broken down completely. “I have great faith in the natural processes,” he said. “But in your case ... well ... I find no precedent. We’ll just have to wait and see, then work with what’s left.”

I spent about two hours in the bar, drinking Bloody Marys for the V-8 nutritional content and watching the flights from L.A. I’d eaten nothing but grapefruit for about twenty hours and my head was adrift from its moorings.

You better watch yourself, I thought. There are limits to what the human body can endure. You don’t want to break down and start bleeding from the ears right here in the terminal. Not in this town. In Las Vegas they kill the weak and deranged.

I realized this, and kept quiet even when I felt symptoms of a terminal blood-sweat coming on. But this passed. I saw the cocktail waitress getting nervous, so I forced myself to get up and walk stiffly out of the bar. No sign of my attorney.

Down to the VIP car-rental booth, where I traded the Red Shark in for a White Cadillac Convertible. “This goddamn Chevy has caused me a lot of trouble,” I told them. “I get the feeling that people are putting me down—especially in gas stations, when I have to get out and open the hood manually.”

“Well ...of course,” said the man behind the desk.

“What you need, I think, is one of our Mercedes 600 Towne-Cruiser Specials, with air-conditioning. You can even carry your own fuel, if you want; we make that available.

“Do I look like a goddamn Nazi?” I said. “I’ll have a natural American car, or nothing at all!”

They called up the white Coupe de Ville at once. Everything was automatic. I could sit in the red-leather driver’s seat and make every inch of the car jump, by touching the proper buttons. It was a wonderful machine: Ten grand worth of gimmicks and high-priced Special Effects. The rear-windows leaped up with a touch, like frogs in a dynamite pond. The white canvas top ran up and down like a roller-coaster. The dashboard was full of esoteric lights & dials & meters that I would never understand—but there was no doubt

in my mind that I was into a superior machine.

The Caddy wouldn’ tget off the line quite as fast as the RedShark, but once it got rol around eighty—it was pure smooth hell ... all that elegant, upholstered weight lashing across the desert was like rolling through midnight on the old California Zephyr.

I handled the whole transaction with a credit card that I later learned was “banceled”—completely bogus. But the Big Computer hsdn’t mixed me yet, so I was still a fat gold credit risk.

Later, looking back on this transaction, I knew the conversation that had almost certainly etisued:

“Hello. This is VIP car-rentals in Las Vegas. We’re calling to check on Number 875-045-6169. Just a routine credit check, nothing urgent ...(Long pause at the other end. Then:) “Holy shit!”

“What?”

“Pardon me...Yes, we have that number. It’s been placed on emergency redline status. Call the police at once and don’t let him out of your sight!”

(Another long pause) “Well ...ah ...you see, that number is not on our current Red List, and ...ah ...Number875-045-616-B just left our lot in a new Cadillac convertible.”

“No!”

“Yes. He’s long gone; totally insured.”

“Where?”

“I think he said St. Louis. Yes, that’s what the card says.