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

even carry your own fuel, if you want; we make that available.

“Do I look like a goddamn Nazi?” I said. “I’ll have a natural American car, or nothing at all!”

They called up the white Coupe de Ville at once. Everything was automatic. I could sit in the red-leather driver’s seat and make every inch of the car jump, by touching the proper buttons. It was a wonderful machine: Ten grand worth of gimmicks and high-priced Special Effects. The rear-windows leaped up with a touch, like frogs in a dynamite pond. The white canvas top ran up and down like a roller-coaster. The dashboard was full of esoteric lights & dials & meters that I would never understand—but there was no doubt

in my mind that I was into a superior machine.

The Caddy wouldn’ tget off the line quite as fast as the RedShark, but once it got rol around eighty—it was pure smooth hell ... all that elegant, upholstered weight lashing across the desert was like rolling through midnight on the old California Zephyr.

I handled the whole transaction with a credit card that I later learned was “banceled”—completely bogus. But the Big Computer hsdn’t mixed me yet, so I was still a fat gold credit risk.

Later, looking back on this transaction, I knew the conversation that had almost certainly etisued:

“Hello. This is VIP car-rentals in Las Vegas. We’re calling to check on Number 875-045-6169. Just a routine credit check, nothing urgent ...(Long pause at the other end. Then:) “Holy shit!”

“What?”

“Pardon me...Yes, we have that number. It’s been placed on emergency redline status. Call the police at once and don’t let him out of your sight!”

(Another long pause) “Well ...ah ...you see, that number is not on our current Red List, and ...ah ...Number875-045-616-B just left our lot in a new Cadillac convertible.”

“No!”

“Yes. He’s long gone; totally insured.”

“Where?”

“I think he said St. Louis. Yes, that’s what the card says.

Raoul Duke, leftfielder & batting champion of the St. Loui sBrowns. Five days at $25 per, plus twenty- five cents a mile.His card was valid, so of course we had no choice ... This is true. The car rental agency had no legal reason to hassle me, since my card was technically valid. During the next four days I drove that car all over Las Vegas—even the VIP agency’s main office on Paradise Boulevard several times—and at no time was I bothered by any show of rudeness.

This is one of the hallmarks of Vegas hospitality. The only bedrock rule is Don’t Burn the Locals. Beyond that, nobody cares. They would rather not know. If Charlie Manson checked into the Sahara tomorrow morning, nobody would hassle him as long as he tipped big.

I drove straight to the hotel after renting the car. There was still no sign of my attorney, so I decided to check in on my own—if only to get off the street and avoid a public breakdown. I left the Whale in a VIP parking slot and shambled self-consciously into the lobby with one small leather bag—a hand-crafted, custom-built satchel that had just been made for me by a leathersmith friend in Boulder.

Our room was at the Flamingo, in the nerve-center of the Strip: right across the street from Caesar’s Palace and the Dunes-site of the Drug Conference. The bulk of the conferees were staying at the Dunes, but those of us who signed up fashionably late were assigned to the Flamingo.

The place was full of cops. I saw this at a glance. Most of them were just standing around trying to look casual, all dressed exactly alike in their cut-rate Vegas casuals: plaid bermuda shorts, Arnie Palmer golf shirts and hairless white legs tapering down to rubberized “beach sandals.” It was a terrifying scene to walk into—a super stakeout of some kind. If I hadn’t known about the conference my mind might have snapped. You got the impression that somebody was going to be gunned down in a blazing crossfire at any moment—maybe the entire Manson Family.

My arrival was badly timed. Most of the national DAs and other cop-types had already checked in. These were the people who now stood around the lobby and stared grimly at newcomers. What appeared to be the Final Stakeout was only about two hundred vacationing cops with nothing better to do. They didn’t even notice each other.

I waded up to the desk and got in line. The man in front of me was a Police Chief from some small town in Michigan. His Agnew-style wife was standing about three feet off to his right while he argued with the desk clerk: “Look, fella—I told you I have a postcard here that says I have reservations in this hotel. Hell, I’m with the District Attorneys’ Conference! I’ve already paid for my room.”

“Sorry, sir. You’re on the ‘late list.’ Your reservations were transferred to the ...ah ... Moonlight Motel, which is out on Paradise Boulevard and actually a very fine place of lodging and only sixteen blocks from here, with its own pool and ...

“You dirty little faggot! Call the manager! I’m tired of listening to this dogshit!”

The manager appeared and offered to call a cab. This was obviously the second or maybe even the third act in a cruel drama that had begun long before I showed up. The police chief’s wife was crying; the gaggle of friends that he’d mustered for support were too embarrassed to back him up—even now, in this showdown at the desk, with this angry little cop firing his best and final shot. They knew he was beaten; he was going against the RULES, and the people hired to enforce those rules said “no vacancy.

After ten minutes of standing in line behind this noisy little asshole and his friends, I felt the bile rising. Where did this cop—of all people—get the nerve to argue with anybody in terms of Right & Reason? I had been there with these fuzzy shitheads—and so, I sensed, had the desk clerk. He had airof a man who’d been fucked around, in his time, by a good cross-section of mean-tempered rule—crazy now he was just giving their argument back to them: It didn’t matter who’s right or wrong, man ... or who’s paid & who hasn’t ... what matters right now is that for at time in my life I can work out on a pig: “Fuck you, I’m in charge here, and I’m telling you we don’t have for you.”

I was enjoying this whipsong, but after a while I felt dizzy, nervous, and my impatience got the better of my amusement. So I stepped around the Pig and spoke directly to the desk clerk—“Say,” I said, “I hate to interrupt, but I have a reservation and I wonder if maybe I could just sort of slide through and get out of your way.” I smiled, letting him know I’d been digging his snake-bully act on the cop party that was now standing there, psychologically off-balance and staring at me like I was some kind of water-rat crawling up to the desk.

I looked pretty bad: wearing old Levis and white Chuck Taylor All-Star basketball sneakers ...and my ten- peso Acapulco shirt had long since come apart at the shoulder seams from all that road-wind. My beard was about three days old, bordering on standard wino trim, and my eyes were totally hidden by Sandy Bull’s Saigon-mirror shades.

But my voice had the tone of a man who knows he has a reservation. I was gambling on my attorney’s foresightbut I couldn’t pass a chance to put the horn into a cop:and I was right. The reservation was in my attorney’s name. The desk-clerk hit his bell to summon the bag-boy. “This is all I have with me, right now,” I said, “The rest is out there in that white Cadillac convertible.” I pointed to the car that we could all see parked just outside the front door. “Can you have somebody drive it around to the room?”

The desk-clerk was friendly. “Don’t worry about a thing, sir. Just enjoy your stay here—and if there’s anything you need, just call the desk.”

I nodded and smiled, half-watching the stunned reaction of the cop-crowd right next to me. They were stupid with shock. Here they were arguing with every piece of leverage they could command, for a room they’d already paid for—and suddenly their whole act gets side—swiped by some crusty drifter who looks like something out of an upper-Michigan hobo jungle. And he checks in with a handful of credit cards! Jesus! What’s happening in this world?

3. Savage Lucy ...”Teeth Like Baseballs, Eyes Like Jellied Fire”

I gave my bag to the boy who scurried up, and told him to bring a quart of Wild Turkey and two fifths of Bacardi Anejo with a night’s worth of ice.