Hunter Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Att’y: Maybe that’s it.

Waitress: It’s on Paradise and what?

Lou: Ross Allen had the old Psychiatrist’s Club. Is he the owner now?

Duke: I don’t know.

Att’y: All we were told was, go till you find the American Dream. Take this white

Cadillac and go find the American Dream. It’s somewhere in the Las Vegas area.

Lou: That has to be the old…

Att’y:… and it’s a silly story to do, but you know, that’s we get paid for.

Lou: Are you taking pictures of it, or…

Att’y: No, no-no pictures.

Lou:… or did somebody just send you on a goose chase?

Att’y: It’s sort of a wild goose chase, more or less, but personally we’re dead serious.

Lou: T has to be the old Psychiatrist’s Club, but the only people who hang out there is a bunch of pushers, peddlers, up wners, and all that stuff.

Att’y: May be that’s it. Is it a night-time place or is it an all day…

Lou: Oh, honey, this never stops. But it’s not a casino.

Att’y: What kind of place is it?

Lou: It’s on Paradise, uh, the old Psychiatrist’s Club’s on Paradise.

Att’y: Is that what it’s called, the old Psychiatrist’s Club?

Lou: No, that is what it used to be, but someone bought it… but I didn’t hear about it as the American Dream, it was something like, associated with, uh… it’s a mental joint, where all the dopers hang out.

Att’y: A mental joint? You mean like a mental hospital?

Lou: No, honey, where all the dope peddlers and all the pushers, everybody hangs out. It’s a place where all the kids are potted when they go in, and everything… but it’s not called what you said, the American Dream.

Att’y: Do you have any idea what it might be called? Or more or less where it might be located?

Lou: Right off of Paradise and Eastern.

Waitress: But Paradise and Eastern are parallel.

Lou: Yeah, but I know I come off of Eastern, and then I go to Paradise

Waitress: Yeah I know it, but then that would make it off Paradise around the Flamingo, straight up here. I think somebody’s handed you a

Att’y: We’re staying at the Flamingo. I think this place you’re talking about and the way you’re describing it, I think that maybe that’s it.

Lou: It’s not a tourist joint.

Att’y: Well, that’s why they sent me. He’s the writer: I’m the bodyguard. ’Cause I figure it will be…

Lou: These guys are nuts… these kids are nuts.

Att’y: That’s OK.

Waitress: Yeah, they got new laws.

Duke: Twenty-four-hour-a-day violence? Is that what we’re saying?

Lou: Exactly. Now here’s the Flamingo… Oh, I can’t show you this; I can tell you better my way. Right up here at the first gas station is Tropicana, take a right.

Att’y: Tropicana to the right.

Lou: The first gas station is Tropicana. Take a right on Tropicana and take this way… right on Tropicana, right on Paradice, you’ll see a big black building, it’s all painted black real weird looking.

Att’y: Right on Tropicana, right on Paradise, black building…

Lou: And there’s a sign on the side of the building that says Psychiatrist’s Club, but they’re completely remodeling it and everything.

Att’y: All right, that’s close enough

Lou: If there’s anything I can do for ya, honey… I don’t know if that’s even it or not. But it sounds like it is. I think you boys are on the right track.

Att’y: Right. That’s the best lead we’ve had for two days, we’ve been asking people all around.

Lou:… I could make a couple calls and sure as hell find out.

Att’y: Could you?

Lou: Sure I’ll call Allen and ask him.

Att’y: Gee, I’d appreciate that if you could.

Waitress: When you go down to Tropicana, it’s not the first gas station, the second.

Lou: There’s a big sign right down the street here, it says Tropicana Avenue. Make a right, and when you get to Paradice make another right.

Att’y: OK. Big black building, right on Paradise: twenty-four-hour-a-day violence, drugs

Waitress: See, here’s Tropicana, and this is Boulder Highway that goes clear down like that.

Duke: Well, that’s pretty far into town then.

Waitress: Well, here’s Paradise split up somewhere around there. There’s Paradice. Paradise. Yeah, we’re down in here. See, this is Boulder Highway… and Tropicana.

Lou: Well, that’s not it, that bartender in there is a pothead too…

Att’y: Yeah, well, it’s a lead.

Lou: You gonna be glad you stopped here, boys.

Duke: Only if we find it.

Att’y: Only if we write the article and get it in.

Waitress: Well, why don’t you come inside and sit down?

Duke: We’re trying to get as much sun as we can.

Att’y: She’s going to make a phone call to find out where it Is.

Duke: Oh. OK, well, let’s go inside.

EDITOR’S NOTE (cont.):

Tape cassettes for the next sequence were impossible to transcribe due to

some viscous liquid encrusted behind the heads. There is a certain consistency

in the garbled sounds however, indicating that almost two hours later Dr.

Duke and his attorney finally located what was left of the “Old Psychiatrist’s

Club"-a huge slab of cracked, scorched concrete in a vacant lot full of tall

weeds. The owner of a gas station across the road said the place had “burned

down about three years ago."»

»My attorney left at dawn. We almost missed the first flight to LA. because I couldn’t find the airport. It was less than thirty minutes from the hotel. I was sure of that. So we left the Flamingo at exactly seven-thirty… but for some reason we failed to make the turnoff at the stoplight in front of the Tropicana. We kept going straight ahead on the freeway, that parallels the main airport runway, but on the opposite from the terminal… and there is no way to get across legally.

“Goddamnit! We’re lost!” my attorney was shouting. What are we doing out here on this godforsaken road? The airport is right over there!” He pointed hysterically across the tundra.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve never missed a plane yet.” I smiled as the memory came back. “Except once in Peru,” I added. “I was already checked out of country, through customs, but I went back to the bar to chat with this Bolivian cocaine dealer… and all of a sudden I heard those big 707 engines starting up, so I ran out to the runway and tried to get aboard but the door was right behind the engines and they’d already rolled the ladder away. Shit, those afterburners would have fried me like bacon… but I was completely out of my head: I was desperate to get aboard.

“The airport cops saw me coming, and they gathered into a knot at the gate. I was running like a bastard, straight at them. The guy with me was screaming: ‘No! It’s too late! Don’t try it!’

“I saw the cops waiting for me, so I slowed down like maybe I’d changed my mind… but when I saw them relax, I did a quick change of pace and tried to run right over the bastards.” I laughed. “Jesus, it was like running full bore into a closet full of gila monsters. The fuckers almost killed me. All I remember is seeing five or six billyclubs coming down on me at the same time, and a lot of voices screaming: ‘No! No! It’s suicide! Stop the crazy gringo!’

“I woke up about two hours later in a bar in downtown Lima. They’d stretched me out in one of those half-moon leather booths. My luggage was all stacked beside me. No body had opened it… so I went back to sleep and caught the first flight out, the next morning.”

My attorney was only half listening. “Look,” he said, “I’d really like to hear more about your adventures in Peru, but not now. Right now all I care about is getting across that god damn runway.”