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

“They’ve nailed me!” I shouted. “I’m trapped in some stinking desert crossroads called Baker. I don’t have much time. The fuckers are closing in.”

“Who?” he said. “You sound a little paranoid.”

“You bastard!” I screamed. “First I got run down by the CHP, then that kid spotted me! I need a lawyer immediately!”

“What are you doing in Baker?” he said. “Didn’t you get my telegram?”

“What? Fuck telegrams. I’m in trouble.”

“You’re supposed to be in Vegas,” he said. “We have a suite at the Flamingo. I was just about to leave for the airport ...

I slumped in the booth. It was too horrible. Here I was calling my attorney in a moment of terrible crisis and the fool was deranged on drugs—a goddamn vegetable! “You worthless bastard,” I groaned. “I’ll cripple your ass for this! All that shit in the car is yours! You understand that? When I finish testifying out here, you’ll be disbarred!”

“You brainless scumbag!” he shouted. “I sent you a telegram! You’re supposed to be covering the National District Attorneys’ Conference! I made all the reservations ...rented a white Cadillac convertible ...the whole thing is arranged! What the hell are you doing out there in the middle the fucking desert?”

Suddenly I remembered. Yes. The telegram. It was all very clear. My mind became calm. I saw the whole thing in a flash. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s all a big joke. I’m actually sitting beside the pool at the Flamingo. I’m talking from a portable phone. Some dwarf brought it out from the casino. I have total credit! Can you grasp that?” I was breathing heavily, feeling crazy, sweating into the phone.

“Don’t come anywhere near this place!” I shouted.

“Foreigners aren’t welcome here.”

I hung up and strolled out to the car. Well, I thought. This is how the world works. All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him.

He knew. He knew all along. It was He who sacked me in Baker. I had run far enough, so He nailed me ...closing off all my escape routes, hassling me first with the CHP and then with this filthy phantom hitchhiker ...plunging me into fear and confusion.

Never cross the Great Magnet. I understood this now .and with understanding came a sense of almost terminal relief. Yes, I would go back to Vegas. Slip the Kid and confound the CHP by moving East again, instead of West. This would be the shrewdest move of my life. Back to Vegas and sign

up for the Drugs and Narcotics conference; me and a thousand pigs. Why not? Move coilfidently into their midst. Register at the Flamingo and have the White Caddy sent over at once. Do it right; remember Horatio Alger. ..

I looked across the road and saw a huge red sign that said BEER. Wonderful. I left the Shark by the phone booth and reeled across the highway into the Hardware Barn. A Jew loomed up from behind a pile of sprockets and asked me what I wanted.

“Ballantine Ale,” I said . .. a very mystic long shot, unknown between Newark and San Francisco.

He served it up, ice-cold.

I relaxed. Suddenly everything was going right; I wasfinally getting the breaks.

The bartender approached me with a smile. “Where yaheadin’, young man?”

“Las Vegas,” I said.

He smiled. “A great town, that Vegas. You’ll have good luck there; you’re the type.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m a Triple Scorpio.”

He seemed pleased. “That’s a fine combination,” he said. “You can’t lose.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m actually the districtattorney from Ignoto county. Just another good American like yourself.”

His smile disappeared. Did he understand? I couldn’t be sure. But that hardly mattered now. I was going back to Vegas. I had no choice.

PART TWO

About 20 miles east of Baker I stopped to check the drug bag. The sun was hot and I felt like killing something. Anything. Even a big lizard. Drill the fucker. I got my attorney’s .357 Magnum out of the trunk and spun the cylinder. It was loaded all the way around: Long, nasty little slugs—158 grains with a fine flat trajectory and painted aztec gold on the tips. I blew the horn a few times, hoping to call up an iguana. Get the buggers moving. They were out there, I knew, in that goddamn sea of cactus—hunkered down, barely breathing, and every one of the stinking little bastards was loaded with deadly poison.

Three fast explosions knocked me off balance. Three deafening, double-action blasts from the .357 in my right hand. Jesus! Firing at nothing, for no reason at all. Bad craziness. I tossed the gun into the front seat of the Shark and stared nervously at the highway. No cars either way; the road was empty for two or three miles in both directions.Fine luck.

It would not do to be found in the desert under these circumstances: firing wildly into the cactus from a car full of drugs. And especially not now, on the lam from the Highway Patrol.

Awkward questions would arise: “Well now, Mister .. . ah ... Duke; you understand, of course, that it is illegal to dise a firearm of any kind while standing on a federal way?”