Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas   ::   Thompson Hunter S.

When I tried to sit down at the baccarat table the bouncers the arm on me. "You don't belong here," one of them said quietly. "Let's go outside."

“Why not?" I said.

They took me out to the front entrance and signaled for the Whale to be brought up.

"Where's your friend?" they asked, while we waited.

'What friend?"

'The big spic."

“Look," I said. "I'm a Doctor of Journalism. You'd never me hanging around this place with a goddamn spic."

They. laughed. "Then what about this?" they said. And they confronted me with a big photograph of me and my attorney at a table in the floating bar.

I srugged. "That's not me," I said. "That's a guy named Thompson. He works for Rolling Stone… a really vicious, crazy kind of person. And that guy sitting next to him is a hit man for the Mafia in Hollywood. Shit, have you studied this photograph? What kind of a maniac would roam around wearing one black glove."

“We noticed that.” They said. “Where is he now?”

I shrugged. “He moves around pretty fast. “ I said. His oerders come out of St. Loius.”

They stared at me. “How do you know all this stuff?”

I showed them my gold PBA badge, flashing it quickly with my back to the crowd. “Act natural,” I whispered. “Don’t put me on the spot."

They were still standing there when I drove off in the Whale. The geek had brought it up at exactly the right moment. I gave him a five-dollar bill and hit the street with a stylish screech of rubber.

It was all ovet now. I drove across to the Flamingo and loaded all my luggage into the car. I tried to put the top up, for privacy, but something was wrong with the motor. The generator light had been on, fiery red, ever since I'd driven the thing into Lake Mead on a water test. A quick run along the dashboard disclosed that every circuit in the car was to tally fucked. Nothing worked. Not even the headlights-and when I hit the air conditioner button I heard a nasty explosion under the hood.

The top was jammed about halfway up, but I decided to try for the airport. If this goddamn junker wouldn't run right, I could always abandon it and call a cab. To hell with this gar bage from Detroit. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

The sun was coming up when I got to the airport. I left the Whale in the VIP parking lot. A kid about fifteen years old checked it in, but I refused to answer his questions. He was very excited about the overall condition of the vehicle. "Holy God!" he kept shouting.