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

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 disappearedr—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 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 Lieutenant 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 forty 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 twenty-four hours this matter of personal control will be critical. Here I am sitting out here alone on this fucking desert, this nest of armed loonies, with a very dangerous carload hazards, horrors and liabilities that I must get back to L.A.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 of this atavistic state at high speed. Right. But, first—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 $75-a-day suite and a fantastic room service bill, run up in forty-eight 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