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

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

“Walt 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 asshole 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 tuck 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 tangled up with Lucy ... No doubt she was a beautiful person, if she ever got straight ... very sensative, with a secret reserve karma undernenth 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 At torney’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 remem ber 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 ...”

No, I was not ready for this. No jury would doubt her testi mony, especially when it came stuttering out through a fog of tears and obscene acid flashbacks. And the fact that she couldn’t recall precisely what we had done to her would make it impossible to deny. The jury would know what we’d done. They would have read about people like us in the $2.95 paper backs: Up To The Hilt and Only Skin Deep, . and seen your type in the $5 fuck-flicks.