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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas :: Thompson Hunter S.
Страница: 46 из 255Where, for instance, was the last place the Las Vegas police would look for a drug - addled fraud - fugitive who just ripped off a downtown hotel?
Right. In the middle of a National District Attorneys’ Drug Conference at an elegant hotel on the strip.… Arriving at Caesar’s Palace for the Tom Jones dinner show in a flashing white Coupe de Ville… At a cocktail party for narcotics agents and their wives at the Dunes?
Indeed, what better place to hide? For some people. But not for me. And certainly not for my attorney - a very conspicuous person. Separately, we might pull it off. But together, no - we would blow it. Too 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.
Right. In the middle of a National District Attorneys’ Drug Conference at an elegant hotel on the strip.… Arriving at Caesar’s Palace for the Tom Jones dinner show in a flashing white Coupe de Ville… At a cocktail party for narcotics agents and their wives at the Dunes?
Indeed, what better place to hide? For some people. But not for me. And certainly not for my attorney - a very conspicuous person. Separately, we might pull it off. But together, no - we would blow it. Too 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.