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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas :: Thompson Hunter S.
Страница: 162 из 255Too much aggressive chemistry in that mix; the temptation to run a deliberate freakout would be too heavy.
And that of course would finish us. They would show us no mercy. To infiltrate the infiltrators would be to accept the fate of all spies: “As always, if you or any member of your organization is apprehended by the enemy, the Secretary will deny any Knowledge,….
No, it was too much. The line between madness and masochism was already hazy; the time had come to pull back… to retire, hunker down, back off and “cop out,” as it were. Why not? In every gig like this, there comes a time to either cut your losses or consolidate your winnings - whichever fits.
I drove slowly, looking for a proper place to sit down with an early morning beer and get my head together… to plot this unnatural retreat.
11. Aaawww, Mama, Can This Really Be the End? Down and Out in Vegas, with Amphetamine Psychosis Again?
Tuesday, 9:00 A.M… Now, sitting in “Wild Bill’s Cafe” on the oputskirts of Las Vegas, I saw it all very learly. There only one road to L.A. - U.S. Intertate 15, a straight-run with no backroads or alternate routes, just a flat-out high-speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo and then on the Hollywood Freeway straight into frantic oblivion: safetly, obscurity, just another freak in the Freak Kingdom.
But in the meantime, for the next five or six hours, I’d be the most conspicsous thing on this goddamn evil road - the only fireapple-red shark convertible between Butte and Tijauana… blazing along this desert highway with a half naked hillbilly mental case at the wheel. Is it better to wear my purple and green Acapulco shirt, or nothing at all?
No way to hide in this monster.
This will not be a happy run. Not even the Sun God wants to watch. He is gone behind a cloud for the first time in three days. No sun at all. The sky is grey and ugly.
Just as I pulled into Wild Bill’s back-street, half-hidden parking lot I heard a roar overhead and looked up to see a big silver smoke-trailing DC-8 taking off - about two thousand feet above the highway. Was Lacerda aboard? The man fom Life? Did they have all the photos they needed? All the facts? Had they fulfilled their responsibilities?
I didn’t even know who’d won the race. Maybe nobody. For all I knew, the whole spectacle had been aborted by a terrible riot - an orgy of senseless violence, kicked off by drunken hoodlums who refused to abide by the rules.
I wanted to plug this gap in my knowledge at the earliest opportunity: Pick up the L.A.
And that of course would finish us. They would show us no mercy. To infiltrate the infiltrators would be to accept the fate of all spies: “As always, if you or any member of your organization is apprehended by the enemy, the Secretary will deny any Knowledge,….
No, it was too much. The line between madness and masochism was already hazy; the time had come to pull back… to retire, hunker down, back off and “cop out,” as it were. Why not? In every gig like this, there comes a time to either cut your losses or consolidate your winnings - whichever fits.
I drove slowly, looking for a proper place to sit down with an early morning beer and get my head together… to plot this unnatural retreat.
11. Aaawww, Mama, Can This Really Be the End? Down and Out in Vegas, with Amphetamine Psychosis Again?
Tuesday, 9:00 A.M… Now, sitting in “Wild Bill’s Cafe” on the oputskirts of Las Vegas, I saw it all very learly. There only one road to L.A. - U.S. Intertate 15, a straight-run with no backroads or alternate routes, just a flat-out high-speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo and then on the Hollywood Freeway straight into frantic oblivion: safetly, obscurity, just another freak in the Freak Kingdom.
But in the meantime, for the next five or six hours, I’d be the most conspicsous thing on this goddamn evil road - the only fireapple-red shark convertible between Butte and Tijauana… blazing along this desert highway with a half naked hillbilly mental case at the wheel. Is it better to wear my purple and green Acapulco shirt, or nothing at all?
No way to hide in this monster.
This will not be a happy run. Not even the Sun God wants to watch. He is gone behind a cloud for the first time in three days. No sun at all. The sky is grey and ugly.
Just as I pulled into Wild Bill’s back-street, half-hidden parking lot I heard a roar overhead and looked up to see a big silver smoke-trailing DC-8 taking off - about two thousand feet above the highway. Was Lacerda aboard? The man fom Life? Did they have all the photos they needed? All the facts? Had they fulfilled their responsibilities?
I didn’t even know who’d won the race. Maybe nobody. For all I knew, the whole spectacle had been aborted by a terrible riot - an orgy of senseless violence, kicked off by drunken hoodlums who refused to abide by the rules.
I wanted to plug this gap in my knowledge at the earliest opportunity: Pick up the L.A.