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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas :: Thompson Hunter S.
Страница: 100 из 255It was like an assembly line.
"The two guys right behind me were longhairs. Acid people. They'd been picked up for vagrancy, too. But when they started emptying their pockets, the whole room freaked. Between them, they had $130,000, mostly in big bills. The cops couldn't believe it. These guys just kept pulling out wads of money and dumping it up there on the desk-both of them naked and kind of hunched over, not saying anything.
"The cops went crazy when they saw all that money. They started whispering to each other; shit, there was no way they could hold these guys for 'vagrancy."' He laughed. "So they charged them with 'suspicion of evasion of income taxes.'
"They took us all to jail, and these two guys were just about nuts. They were dealers, of course, and they had their stash back in their hotel room-so they had to get out before the cops found out where they were staying.
"They offered one of the guards a hundred bucks to go out and get the best lawyer in town… and about twenty minutes later there he was, yelling about habeas corpus and that kind of shit… hell, I tried to talk to him myself, but this guy had a one-track mind. I told him I could make bail and even pay him something if they'd let me call my father in Chicago, but he was too busy hustling for these other guys.
"About two hours later he came back with a guard and said 'Let's go.' They were out. One of the guys had told me, while they were waiting, that it was going to cost them $30,000… and I guess it did, but what the hell? That's cheap, compared to what would have happened If they hadn't got themselves sprung.
“They finally let me send a telegram to my old man and he wired me 125 bucks…but it took seven or eight days. I’m not sure how long I was in there, because the place didn't have any windows and they fed us every twelve hours… You lose track of time when you can't see the sun.
“They had seventy-five guys in each cell-big rooms with a bowl out in the middle. They gave you a pallet when came in, and you slept wherever you wanted. The guy next to me had been in there for thirty years, for robbing a gas station.
“When I finally got out, the cop on the desk took another twenty-five bucks out of what my father sent me, on top of what I owed for the vagrancy fine. What could I say? He just took it. Then he gave me the other $75 and said they had a cab waiting for me outside, for the ride to the airport… and when I got in the cab the driver said, 'We're not making any stops, fella, and you'd better not move until we get to the terminal.
"The two guys right behind me were longhairs. Acid people. They'd been picked up for vagrancy, too. But when they started emptying their pockets, the whole room freaked. Between them, they had $130,000, mostly in big bills. The cops couldn't believe it. These guys just kept pulling out wads of money and dumping it up there on the desk-both of them naked and kind of hunched over, not saying anything.
"The cops went crazy when they saw all that money. They started whispering to each other; shit, there was no way they could hold these guys for 'vagrancy."' He laughed. "So they charged them with 'suspicion of evasion of income taxes.'
"They took us all to jail, and these two guys were just about nuts. They were dealers, of course, and they had their stash back in their hotel room-so they had to get out before the cops found out where they were staying.
"They offered one of the guards a hundred bucks to go out and get the best lawyer in town… and about twenty minutes later there he was, yelling about habeas corpus and that kind of shit… hell, I tried to talk to him myself, but this guy had a one-track mind. I told him I could make bail and even pay him something if they'd let me call my father in Chicago, but he was too busy hustling for these other guys.
"About two hours later he came back with a guard and said 'Let's go.' They were out. One of the guys had told me, while they were waiting, that it was going to cost them $30,000… and I guess it did, but what the hell? That's cheap, compared to what would have happened If they hadn't got themselves sprung.
“They finally let me send a telegram to my old man and he wired me 125 bucks…but it took seven or eight days. I’m not sure how long I was in there, because the place didn't have any windows and they fed us every twelve hours… You lose track of time when you can't see the sun.
“They had seventy-five guys in each cell-big rooms with a bowl out in the middle. They gave you a pallet when came in, and you slept wherever you wanted. The guy next to me had been in there for thirty years, for robbing a gas station.
“When I finally got out, the cop on the desk took another twenty-five bucks out of what my father sent me, on top of what I owed for the vagrancy fine. What could I say? He just took it. Then he gave me the other $75 and said they had a cab waiting for me outside, for the ride to the airport… and when I got in the cab the driver said, 'We're not making any stops, fella, and you'd better not move until we get to the terminal.