a bit of speed left… no more grass, the coke bottle was empty, one acid blotter, a nice brown lump of opium hash and six loose amyls… Not enough for anything serious, but a careful rationing of the mescaline would probably get us through the four - day Drug Conference.
On the outskirts of Vegas I stopped at a neighborhood pharmacy and bought two quarts of Gold tequila, two fifths of Chivas Regal and a pint of ether. I was tempted to ask for some amyls. My angina pectoris was starting to act up. But druggist had the eyes of a mean Baptist hysteric. I told n I needed the ether to get the tape off my legs, but by that time he’d already rung the stuff up and bagged it. He didn’t give a fuck about ether.
I wondered what he would say if I asked him for $22 worth Romilar and a tank of nitrous oxide. Probably he would sold it to me. Why not? Free enterprise… Give the public what it needs - especially this bad - sweaty, nervous talkin’ fella with tape all over his legs and this terrible cough, along with angina pectoris and these godawful Aneuristic flashes every time he gets in the sun. I mean this fella was in bad shape, officer. How the hell was I to know he’d walk straight out to his car and start abusing those drugs?
How indeed? I lingered a moment at the magazine rack, then got a grip on myself and hurried outside to the car. The idea of going completely crazy on laughing gas in the middle of a DAs’ drug conference had a definite warped appeal. But not on the first day, I thought. Save that for later. No point getting busted and committed before the conference even starts.
I stole a Review - Journal from a rack in the parking lot,
but I threw it away after reading a story on page one:
SURGERY UNCERTAIN AFTER EYES REMOVED
BALTIMORE (UPI) - Doctors said Friday they were uncertain whether surgery would succeed in restoring the eyesight of a young man who pulled out his eyes while suffering the effects of a drug over(lose in a jail cell. Charles Innes, Jr., 25, underwent surgery late Thursday at Maryland General Hospital but doctors said it be weeks before they could determine the outcome. statement issued by the hospital reported that Innes uo light perception in either eye prior to surgery and the possibility he will ever have light perception is extremely poor.” Innes, son of a prominent Massachusetts Republican, was found in a jail cell Thursday by a turnkey who said Innes had pulled out his eyeballs.
Innes was arrested Wednesday night while walking nude through a neighborhood near where he lived. He was examined at Mercy Hospital and then placed in a jail cell. Police and one of Innes’ friends said he had taken an overdose of animal tranquilizer.
Police reported the drug was PCP, a Parke - Davis product not sold for human medical purposes since 1963. However, a spokesman for Parke - Davis said he thought the drug might be available on the black market.
Taken alone, the spokesman said PCP effects would not last more than 12 to 14 hours. However, the effects of PCP combined with an hallucinogen such as LSD were not known.
Innes told a neighbor last Saturday, the day after he first took the drug, that his eyes were bothering him and that he could not read.
Wednesday night police said Innes seemed to be in a deeply depressed state and so impervious to pain that he did not scream when he pulled out his eyes.
2. Another Day, Another Convertible… Another Hotel Full of Cops
The first order of business was to get rid of the Red Shark. It was too obvious. Too many people might recognize it, especially the Vegas police; although as far as they knew, the thing was already back home in L.A. It was last seen running at top speed across Death Valley on Interstate 15. Stopped and warned in Baker by the CHP… then suddenly disapeared…
The last place they would look for it, I felt, was in a rental - car lot at the airport. I had to go out there anyway, to meet my attorney. He would be arriving from L.A. in the late afternoon.
I drove very quietly on the freeway, gripping my normal instinct for bursts of acceleration and sudden lane changes - trying to remain inconspicuous - and when I got there I parked the Shark between two old Air Force buses in a “utility lot” about half a mile from the terminal. Very tall buses. Make it hard as possible for the fuckers. A little walking never hurt anybody.
By the time I got to the terminal I was pouring sweat. But nothing abnormal. I tend to sweat heavily in warm climates.clothes are soaking wet from dawn to dusk. This worried at first, but when I went to a doctor and described my normal daily intake of booze, drugs and poison he told me to come back when the sweating stopped. That would be the danger point, he said - a sign that my body’s desperately overworked flushing mechanism had broken down completely. “I have great faith in the natural processes,” he said. “But in your case… well… I find no precedent. We’ll just have to wait and see, then work with what’s left.”
I spent about two hours in the bar, drinking Bloody Marys for the V - 8 nutritional content and watching the flights from L.A. I’d eaten nothing but grapefruit for about twenty hours and my head was adrift from its moorings.
You better watch yourself, I thought. There are limits to what the human body can endure. You don’t want to break down and start bleeding from the ears right here in the terminal. Not in this town. In Las Vegas they kill the weak and deranged.
I realized this, and kept quiet even when I felt symptoms of a terminal blood - sweat coming on. But this passed. I saw the cocktail waitress getting nervous, so I forced myself to get up and walk stiffly out of the bar. No sign of my attorney.
Down to the VIP car - rental booth, where I traded the Red Shark in for a White Cadillac Convertible. “This goddamn Chevy has caused me a lot of trouble,” I told them. “I get the feeling that people are putting me down - especially in gas stations, when I have to get out and open the hood manually.”
“Well… of course,” said the man behind the desk.
“What you need, I think, is one of our Mercedes 600 Towne - Cruiser Specials, with air - conditioning. You can 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. Every - thing 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?”
